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Those are examples of predicting demand changes on a macro scale.

Amazon wants to do this on a more micro, person-by-person level. For example, you visit a product page for some specialty shampoo. Amazon might decide to ship that product before you even add it to your cart.

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I think he might be referring to them owning the patent on "predictive shipping". Plenty of prior art, where this appears obvious.

My response to Amazon, if they do this, is something I call predictive returns. As in, I predict I will return everything they ship to me in this manner.

They don't actually release the product to the consumer until you actually buy it. They just move it closer to you.

It's like you read the article or something.

I does mention freebies in the patent - that would assume they have a confidence level where they ship something to you before it's bought.

The patent isn't for "predictive shipping." It's for Amazon's specific implementation of "predictive shipping."

You can't just boil a patent down to two words and then claim prior art.

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