Methods for Searching and Obtaining Design Items and Meta Data Concerning the Design Items

#Portions of this patent application include materials that are subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document itself, or of the patent application as it appears in the files of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever in such included copyrighted materials.

#The present disclosure relates generally to the fashion industry, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to systems and methods for online fashion design marketplace.

#The following discussion of the background is intended to facilitate an understanding of the present disclosure only. It should be appreciated that the discussion is not an acknowledgement or admission that any of the material referred to was part of the common general knowledge at the priority date of the application.

#FIG. 1 shows an illustrative embodiment of a system for creating an online design marketplace;

#FIG. 2 is a schematic, block diagram of an illustrative embodiment of a data processing system for implementing the system of FIG. 1;

#FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of presenting an illustrative way that users may access the data processing system;

#In the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments, reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which is shown, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical structural, mechanical, electrical, and chemical changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. To avoid detail not necessary to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, the description may omit certain information known to those skilled in the art. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the claims.

#Unless otherwise indicated, as used throughout this document, “or” does not require mutual exclusivity.

#Referring to the drawings and initially to FIG. 1, a system 100 for creating an online design marketplace is presented. The system 100 includes a data processing system 102 that communicates, connects, or transmits information as suggested by reference 104 over a communication network 106 to and from Users. Unless otherwise indicated, as used throughout this document, “or” does not require mutual exclusivity. The system 102 is operated by a design marketplace host. The users include a plurality of designers 108, such as designer N 110, designer N+1 112, designer N+2 114, and a plurality of design purchasers 116, for example design purchaser N 118, design purchaser N+1 120, and design purchaser N+2 122. It should be noted that the designs developed by the designers 108 and purchased or potentially purchased by the design purchasers 116 may be any kind of fashion-related designs such as clothing, clothing accessories, furniture, home accessories, jewelry, shoes, bags, belts, wallets, home goods/furnishings, artwork, fabric patterns, print patterns, etc. The designers 108 may be any person or organization or artisan that creates a design. The design purchasers 116 may be, for example, retailers looking for fashion designs or boutique shops looking for unique items, or others interested in purchasing designs. Optionally, the users may also include a plurality of manufacturers 124 who may be provided access to the system 100 in order to bid on carrying out the manufacturing of any of the purchased designs.