united-states commerce commerce-clause
I am not allowed to purchase Tech B unless already a customer of System A from same Company, which I do not want/need ..legal?
<p>A computer system is listed for sale on a company's website with the caveat that I must already be a customer of their gene sequencing platform, which I am not interested in / do not need, as I do not work in this field of study. The computer system is not a promotional or discounted item, nor is it in any way dependent upon the sequencing hardware for it to function.</p>
<p>The computer system is 100% standalone is advertised separately from the sequencing platform.</p>
<p>Is this &quot;full line forcing&quot;? is this acceptable / legal business practice?</p>

<h2>This is freedom of contract</h2>
<p>The company sells one product to everyone, System A.</p>
<p>The company also sells Tech B to only its pre-existing customers.</p>
<p>That is not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_(antitrust_law)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">bundling</a> under the general ideas of antitrust law or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Product Bundling</a> under competition laws, as you don't have any secondary items, and two wholly distinct sales.</p>
<p>The company offers its products separately. The best equivalent would be a line in a restaurant menu that lists &quot;extra patty for your burger&quot; that is only sold as an option for your Hamburger <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/q/85611/10334">but not alone</a>. Just rephrase the offer to &quot;Tech B for our customers of System A&quot;.</p>
<p>There might even be reasons why Tech B is not offered on its own and can't be bought by non-customers of System A. The most simple would be that Tech B is pre-installed with System A - but it is not bundling because you already need to <em>own</em> System A to buy Tech B and Tech B is not offered as <em>machine that can run system A</em> but <em>machine set up to run System A</em> - which is not a bundle but a different product, just like gluten-free cake is to normal cake.</p>
<h2>Nothing forbids negotiating</h2>
<p>That doesn't mean that legally you can't get the Tech B: you just would need to negotiate with them for it, outside of the normally offered items.</p>
