In a case of first impression, the District Court held that since the sales in question were to "governmental" purchasers, Noerr-Pennington immunized Taser not merely from the "general" proscriptions upon anti-competitive conduct that appear in the Sherman Act and its state law equivalents, but the highly specific prohibitions against the use of bribery in connection with the interstate sale of goods, that appear in § 2(c) of the Robinson-Patman Act. Does this represent an unwarranted extension of Omni and of Noerr-Pennington and is it otherwise contrary to this Court's settled Robinson-Patman jurisprudence, notably the statement in California Motor Transp. Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508, 512 (1972) that the "bribery of a public purchasing agent may constitute a violation of § 2(c) of the Clayton Act, as amended by the Robinson-Patman Act," Noerr-Pennington notwithstanding, and the holding in Jefferson County Pharm. Assoc. v. Abbott Labs, 460 U.S. 150, 159-60, 161 and 171 (1983), that when Robinson-Patman was enacted, Congress was well aware of the prospect that the Act would apply to governmental purchases and yet declined to exempt such transactions from its provisions?

2. The District Court relied upon Omni for the proposition not only that there is no "conspiracy" exception to Noerr-Pennington, but that even conduct amounting to "bribery or some other violation of state or federal law" is immune from attack under the Sherman Act. Since there is no mention of "bribery" in the recitation of facts appearing in Omni; since no claims involving allegations of bribery were submitted to the Omni jury; since no claim of bribery was mentioned in the judgment which this Court ultimately reviewed on certiorari; and since bribery was nowhere discussed in the Omni dissent, is Omni's suggestion that bribery of a public official is no less protected than any other form of "petitioning," merely dicta, of no binding effect?

3. According to Omni, a showing, merely, that a governmental entity possessed the "authority to regulate" in the way that was alleged by the plaintiff to be anti-competitive, is all that is necessary in order for immunity, whether arising under Parker v. Brown, 317 U.S. 341 (1943) or under Noerr-Pennington, to attach. Was that regime of immunity, "ipso facto," abrogated subsequently by North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, 135 S. Ct. 1101 (2015) as the dissent in Board of Dental Examiners itself suggests and with it the Court's dictum regarding "bribery?"

Whether the Noerr-Pennington doctrine immunizes commercial bribery from liability under the Robinson-Patman Act