In response to the accusation that its affiliate Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has violated the trademark of Beijing Travelstar High-tech Company by using the latter's trademark in its product tags, Hitachi says that it has not infringed the trademark of BTHC and has already removed the trademark from its products.

Hitachi says that the Travelstar trademark was used by IBM before it purchased the hard disk business from IBM and took over the brand of Travelstar, which was registered by BTHC in 2000.

Hitachi announced that Hitachi GST has been using the Travelstar trademark since 1997, thus the registration of Beijing Travelstar High-tech Company is in bad faith. Hitachi says it has applied for the invalidation BTHC's trademark registration and Hitachi GST is also negotiating with the Travelstar trademark owner to solve this problem.

Wang Yuchen, general manager of BTHC, says that Hitachi can't provide any evidence showing that it has not violated BTHC's trademark.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was founded in 2003 as a result of the strategic combination of IBM and Hitachi's storage technology businesses.