The so-called “issue preclusion” means that when a party argued an issue as a major issue in dispute, and the court tried said issue and rendered a judgment accordingly in a prior litigation, then during a trial of a subsequent independent litigation with said issue as a previous question, no assertion or producing of evidence that contradicts said judgment shall be allowed, nor a contradicting judgment shall be rendered. Therefore, the issue preclusion is binding if the parties are identical between both litigations; however, if the parties are not identical between both litigations, the determination regarding the validity of the patent right rendered during the prior litigation will not be able to bind the parties of the subsequent litigation.

A patentee may request for destruction of the infringing articles or the materials or implements used in infringing the patent, or request for other necessary disposal. However, upon enforcing his/her patent right, the patentee has to exercise reasonable righteousness and to protect any bona fide third party, so as to prohibit the abuse of the patent right, in order to prevent the bona fide third party from any unforeseen loss and thereby diminish undue cost of the society.

If the infringer provided the infringing articles with a distributor for marketing and making profit therefrom, and the distributor knew that the articles infringed a patent right, the patentee can thereby request for destruction of the infringing articles to prevent the same from being circulated in the market on the ground that there is a likelihood of patent infringement because of the sale of the infringing articles by the distributor. In case the infringing articles were circulated in the market, if consumers purchased the articles by taking advantage of their cheaper sale prices with knowledge of their infringing nature, then such purchased articles worth no further protective value and can be requested to be destructed by the patentee. By the same token, if the infringer forged a contract for sale of goods in fraudulent collusion with a third party when the third party knew that the articles infringed a patent right, the patentee can therefore enforce his/her right to request for destruction of the infringing articles in order to punish the bad faith third party.

In light of the emerging and evolving patented technologies, it will be too harsh to require the distributors to assume responsibilities of judging whether the circulated articles infringed any patent right. Accordingly, there will be no cause attributable to a distributor if the distributor acquired the infringing articles in good faith, and the patentee cannot enforce his/her right to request for destruction of the infringing articles owned or held by the good faith distributor. Similarly, when consumers purchased articles in good faith from auction house, open market or merchants dealing in goods of the kind without any knowledge of their infringing nature, the patentee cannot enforce his/her right to request for destruction of those infringing articles, in order to protect the rights of the good faith third parties under the purpose for maintaining a risk-free transaction.