Apart from being on the "priority watch list" under Special 301 for its Patents Act which, in view of the US Trade Administration was allowing infringement of patents held by the US business, action was also threatened against India for its negotiating stance in the area of intellectual property rights in the Uruguay Round negotiations. The then US Trade Representative, Carla Hills, had stated while issuing the 1989 list of countries on the "priority watch list" that India's actions in the Uruguay Round negotiations would be watched closely before any decision of trade retaliation was taken. The pressure put on India remains among the more stark examples of the threatened use of unilateral action of trade retaliation by a major trading country to realise its objectives in the multilateral negotiations.
 
It was particularly in light of these developments that the multilateralism of the WTO was considered to be a positive outcome. There were two main strengths of the WTO that were perceived of as it was being put in place. The first was the element of predictability that it imparted to the trading system. The second was that the stronger and the more effective dispute settlement mechanism provided for in the organisation would work as a deterrent for the use of unilateral actions of the kind provided for under Section 301.
 
The United States had, however, seen the WTO in a completely different light. This was evident from the one of the statements issued subsequent to the country acceding to the WTO: "There is no basis for concern that the Uruguay round agreements in general, or the DSU in particular, will make future Administrations more reluctant to apply Section 301 sanctions that may be inconsistent with US trade obligations because such sanctions could engender DSU-authorized counter-retaliation. Although in specific cases the United States has expressed its intention to address an unfair trade practice by taking action under Section 301 that has not been authorized by the GATT, the United States has done so infrequently. In certain cases the United States has taken such action because the foreign government has blocked adoption of a GATT panel report against it. Just as the United States may now choose to take Section 301 action that are not GATT-authorized, governments that are the subject of such actions may choose to respond in kind.
 
That situation will not change under the Uruguay Round agreements". The intention of the US Trade Administration to seek resolution of a trade dispute through the unilateral means even in the presence of the multilateral system provided by the WTO was thus stated quite ambiguously. What the ruling of the Panel in its favour may now do is to push it into taking recourse to these means.