Patent ID: 7216092

Claim:
A method of facilitating the creation of personalized products, for use in a system where a user on a user computer can access at least one host merchant computer via a communication network, the host merchant computer including a web server in communication with a products database containing information on products available for personalization and further containing manufacturing capabilities of a plurality of vendors capable of producing the products available for personalization, the method comprising: providing to the user via said communication network at least one web page providing an assortment of product selections for products in the products database, wherein the products database contains two or more products, and one or more products available in the products database are associated with manufacturing capabilities of two or more vendors, capable of producing the product, wherein said manufacturing capabilities comprise user contributed individual enhancements of the product; receiving a message from the user via said communication network indicating a selection of a selected product from said assortment of product selections, the selected product being associated with the manufacturing capabilities of two or more vendors capable of producing the selected product; retrieving a set of manufacturing capabilities for the selected product from the products database, the set of manufacturing capabilities including manufacturing capabilities of said two or more vendors capable of producing the selected product; providing to the user via said communication network a design interface, said design interface comprising at least one web page including at least one design tool that allows the user to select configuration options and to create the individualized enhancements for the selected product, wherein said design tool is configured to constrain at least one configuration option available in said design interface in response to a user selection of a configuration option so as to only allow the user to select further configuration options and create individualized enhancements such that the user selected a set of configuration options and created a set of individualized enhancements for the selected product are within the manufacturing capabilities retrieved from the database of at least one vendor of said two or more vendors capable of producing the selected product; receiving from fine user via said design interface the set of selected configuration options and the set of individualized enhancements for the selected product; selecting a vendor from said two or more vendors, the selected vendor being capable of producing the selected product personalized with the set of selected configuration options and the set of individualized enhancements; converting the set of selected configuration options and the set of individualized enhancements for the selected product into a file having a format compatible with the needs of the selected vendor; and communicating the file to the selected vendor.