Dating of Commercial Meaning of "Bundle"

[James A. Landau <JJJRLandau@netscape.com>]

"Bundling" of software with hardware was one of the important anti-trust charges in the well-known United States v. International Business Machines Corp., 69 Div. 200 ( (S.D.N.Y filed January 17, 1969) ).  It is quite likely that historical references to the term "bundling" can be found in that case.

Antitrust law distinguishes "bundling" and "tying".  I do not understand the distinction, but it apparently goes back a long ways.  For example,
  http://www.cci.gov.in/images/media/ResearchReports/VikramadityaSMalikCCIPaper.pdf

references antitrust cases involving "tying" such as International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392 (1947) , Northern Pacific Railway Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1 (1958), United States V. Jerrold Electronic Corp. 187 F. Supp 545 (E. D. Pa. 1960), aff'd per curiam, 365 U.S. 567 (1961), and IBM v. United States, 298 U.S. 131 (1936)

   James A. Landau (non-lawyer)


On Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:46:23  Zone minus 0400 "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:

I would be interested in finding out how far back anyone can date the
sense of the verb _bundle_ meaning "To sell related products or services
in one transaction at an all-inclusive price."  Jesse, does the OED have
citations for this sense, and, if so, what is the earliest one they
have?

Fred Shapiro



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