Cite as: 508 U. S. 49 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
vant respects. First, we extended Noerr to "the approach of citizens . . . to administrative agencies . . . and to courts." 404 U. S., at 510. Second, we held that the complaint showed a sham not entitled to immunity when it contained allegations that one group of highway carriers "sought to bar . . . competitors from meaningful access to adjudicatory tribunals and so to usurp that decisionmaking process" by "institut[ing] . . . proceedings and actions . . . with or without probable cause, and regardless of the merits of the cases." Id., at 512 (internal quotation marks omitted). We left unresolved the question presented by this case—whether litigation may be sham merely because a subjective expectation of success does not motivate the litigant. We now answer this question in the negative and hold that an objectively reasonable effort to litigate cannot be sham regardless of subjective intent.4
Our original formulation of antitrust petitioning immunity required that unprotected activity lack objective reasonableness. Noerr rejected the contention that an attempt "to influence the passage and enforcement of laws" might lose immunity merely because the lobbyists' "sole purpose . . . was to destroy [their] competitors." 365 U. S., at 138. Nor were we persuaded by a showing that a publicity campaign "was intended to and did in fact injure [competitors] in their relationships with the public and with their customers," since such "direct injury" was merely "an incidental effect of the . . . campaign to influence governmental action." Id., at 143.
4 California Motor Transport did refer to the antitrust defendants' "purpose to deprive . . . competitors of meaningful access to the . . . courts." 404 U. S., at 512. See also id., at 515 (noting a "purpose to eliminate . . . a competitor by denying him free and meaningful access to the agencies and courts"); id., at 518 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment) (agreeing that the antitrust laws could punish acts intended "to discourage and ultimately to prevent [a competitor] from invoking" administrative and judicial process). That a sham depends on the existence of anticompetitive intent, however, does not transform the sham inquiry into a purely subjective investigation.
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