This invention relates generally to wardrobe closets. More particularly, the invention provides methods and systems for managing a person's wardrobe with a computer system connected to the Internet.
Typical wardrobe closets merely provide a mechanism for storing a person's clothing. When selecting clothing, a person must search through the wardrobe closet and gather separate articles of clothing to forma coordinated outfit. Often times some articles of clothing may be stored in a portion of the wardrobe closet that make it unlikely that the user will select those articles of clothing. Furthermore, it is often difficult for a person to remember the characteristics of every article of clothing they have stored in their wardrobe closet. As a result, it is difficult to maximize the number of coordinated outfits they can be assembled from a person's clothing inventory.
When shopping in clothing stores, shoppers often look at a new article of clothing and try to determine whether or not the new article of clothing will form a coordinated outfit with one or more of the shopper's existing articles of clothing. Unfortunately, the shoppers are forced to try to remember characteristics like the colors and textures of their existing clothing before making a purchasing decision. This imperfect process often results in a shopper returning a purchased article of clothing after seeing the article of clothing next to one or more other articles of clothing.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a system that assists the user in managing the user's clothing inventory and facilitates adding additional articles of clothing to the user's clothing inventory.
The present invention provides a wardrobe closet that assists users in selecting and purchasing clothing. The wardrobe closet allows the user to conveniently and efficiently manage the user's clothing inventory.
In one embodiment, the advantages of the present invention are realized by a method of aiding a user in the selection of clothing. The method includes the steps of automatically identifying clothing stored in a wardrobe closet and automatically identifying a first piece of clothing that has been removed from the wardrobe closet. Next, the wardrobe closet automatically determines a second piece of clothing that is appropriate to wear with the first piece of clothing. An identification of the second piece of clothing is presented to the user.
In another embodiment, a method of aiding a user in the selection of clothing is provided. The method includes the steps of storing a user's schedule of appointments in a memory and automatically identifying clothing that has been removed from a wardrobe closet. A software algorithm is executed to determine whether the clothing is appropriate to wear to the appointments included in the user's schedule of appointments. The user is alerted when the clothing that has been removed from the wardrobe closet is not appropriate to wear to the appointments included in the user's schedule of appointments.
In yet another embodiment of the invention, a method of identifying clothing at a store that may be of interest to a consumer is provided. The method includes the steps of receiving information identifying clothing owned by the consumer and identifying clothing offered for sale by the store. Next clothing that may be of interest to the consumer is identified. A representation of the clothing that may be of interest to the consumer is then displayed.
An embodiment that includes a wardrobe closet that identifies clothing and transmits information to a wide area network is also provided. The wardrobe closet includes a radio frequency receiver configured to read information included on radio frequency sensitive tags attached to clothing. A computer is coupled to the radio frequency receiver and a wide area network and is configured to transmit information to the wide area network and receive information from additional computers coupled to the wide area network. The wardrobe closet also includes a display device coupled to the computer that displays clothing information to a user.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limited in the accompanying figures in which like reference numerals indicate similar elements and in which:
Elements of the present invention may be implemented with computer systems, such as the system 100 shown in
Computer 100 may also include a variety of interface units and drives for reading and writing data. In particular, computer 100 includes a hard disk interface 116 and a removable memory interface 120 respectively coupling a hard disk drive 118 and a removable memory drive 122 to system bus 114. Examples of removable memory drives include magnetic disk drives and optical disk drives. The drives and their associated computer-readable media, such as a floppy disk 124 provide nonvolatile storage of computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules and other data for computer 100. A single hard disk drive 118 and a single removable memory drive 122 are shown for illustration purposes only and with the understanding that computer 100 may include several of such drives. Furthermore, computer 100 may include drives for interfacing with other types of computer readable media.
A user can interact with computer 100 with a variety of input devices.
Computer 100 may include additional interfaces for connecting devices to system bus 114.
Computer 100 also includes a video adapter 140 coupling a display device 142 to system bus 114. Display device 142 may include a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), field emission display (FED), plasma display or any other device that produces an image that is viewable by the user. Additional output devices, such as a printing device (not shown), may be connected to computer 100.
Sound can be recorded and reproduced with a microphone 144 and a speaker 166. A sound card 148 may be used to couple microphone 144 and speaker 146 to system bus 114. One skilled in the art will appreciate that the device connections shown in
Computer 100 can operate in a networked environment using logical connections to one or more remote computers or other devices, such as a server, a router, a network personal computer, a peer device or other common network node, a wireless telephone or wireless personal digital assistant. Computer 100 includes a network interface 150 that couples system bus 114 to a local area network (LAN) 152. Networking environments are commonplace in offices, enterprise-wide computer networks and home computer systems.
A wide area network (WAN) 154, such as the Internet, can also be accessed by computer 100.
It will be appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary and other ways of establishing a communications link between the computers can be used. The existence of any of various well-known protocols, such as TCP/IP, Frame Relay, Ethernet, FTP, HTTP and the like, is presumed, and computer 100 can be operated in a client-server configuration to permit a user to retrieve web pages from a web-based server. Furthermore, any of various conventional web browsers can be used to display and manipulate data on web pages.
The operation of computer 100 can be controlled by a variety of different program modules. Examples of program modules are routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The present invention may also be practiced with other computer system configurations, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor based or programmable consumer electronics, network PCS, minicomputers, mainframe computers, personal digital assistants and the like. Furthermore, the invention may also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices.
Wardrobe closet 200 may store and transmit information relating to the clothing owned and acquired by a user. In one embodiment of the invention, the information is transmitted through the Internet 206 to a wardrobe server 208. Wardrobe server 208 may store information for variety of different users and may be implemented with a variety of conventional components. Wardrobe server 208 includes a clothing inventory memory module 210 that may be used to store a user's clothing information. The user's clothing sizes may be stored in a clothing sizes memory module 212 and the user's clothing preferences may be stored in a clothing preference module 214. Additional clothing information may also be stored in wardrobe server 208. For example the identification of clothing stores may be stored in clothing store memory module 216 and a user's favorite stores may be stored in store preference memory module 218. Clothing that the user wishes to purchase in the future may be stored in a wish list memory module 220.
Access to wardrobe server 208 may be controlled by information contained in access data module 222. A variety of different methods may be used to control access to wardrobe server 208. In one embodiment of the invention, the user is required to enter a personal identification number (PIN) before accessing wardrobe server 208. In another embodiment of the invention, an access code is read from a smart card to permit access to wardrobe server 208. The overall operation of wardrobe server 208 may be governed by an operating system program 224 in conjunction with a controller 226. Operating system program 224 and controller 226 may be implemented with a variety of conventional programs and electronic components that are well-known to those skilled in the art. Wardrobe server 208 also includes an interface 228, such as a modem, that allows wardrobe server 208 to communicate with the Internet 206.
A variety of websites may be connected to Internet 206.
Wardrobe closet 200 also includes a personal digital assistant (PDA) interface 310 coupled to serial port interface 304. The user may store schedule information in a PDA and enter the information into a schedule section 312 of memory 306 via PDA interface 310. Wardrobe closet 200 also includes a modem 314 coupling computer 204 to the Internet 206. Information such as weather conditions in one or more cities may be retrieved from Internet 206 and stored in weather section 316 of memory 306. A video adapter 320 may be used to cause display 202 to display information stored in memory 306 or retrieved from the Internet 206. Additional uses for the information stored in memory 306 and information retrieved from the Internet 206 will be described below.
Wardrobe closet 200 may also include a smart card interface 318 that may be used to couple a smart card (not shown) to computer 204. A smart card may include information that identifies the user, identifies a clothing owned by the user or any of the other information to may be stored in memory 306 or in wardrobe server 208.
One skilled in the art will appreciate that the present invention can be implemented with several wardrobe closets. In one embodiment, each wardrobe closet has a separate RF receiver for identifying clothing and each of the RF receivers may be coupled to a common computer. Alternatively, each wardrobe closet may include a computer and the computers may be coupled together.
Wardrobe closets, such as wardrobe closet 200, may be distributed as promotional items. Brick & mortar store 234 or store web site 230 may provide wardrobe closets to users at reduced or no cost to the user in exchange for the user only using the wardrobe closet to shop or purchase clothing from brick & mortar store 234 or store web site 230.
In step 404, the wardrobe closet suggests a matching article of clothing. For example, when the user removes a shirt, the wardrobe closet may identify a matching pair of pants, shoes and a tie that form a coordinated outfit with the selected shirt. The suggestions provided by the wardrobe closet may be updated as a user removes additional articles of clothing. For example, after the user removes a shirt and a pair of pants, the wardrobe closet may determine which pair of shoes form a coordinated outfit with the selected shirt and pants. One skilled in the art will appreciate that computer 204 may include a software program for making such determinations based on factors such as style and color.
Next, in step 406, the wardrobe closet retrieves the user's schedule information. The user's schedule may be stored in a PDA, locally in memory and, in a memory connected to Internet 206 or in some other location. The current or forecasted weather conditions may also be retrieved in step 408. In one embodiment of the invention, weather information is retrieved from a web site connected to Internet 206 in a conventional manner. Computer 204 may be program to retrieve weather information that corresponds to locations identified in the user's schedule.
In step 410, the wardrobe closet determines whether the selected clothing is appropriate for the user's schedule and weather conditions. Each piece of clothing may be classified to aid in the determination. For example, a specific suit jacket may be classified to indicate that is appropriate to wear to formal meetings during the summer. In the event that the selected clothing is not appropriate for either the user's schedule or predicted weather conditions, the wardrobe closet may select alternative clothing in step 412. The selections may be display on display 202. Computer 204 may include a software program that performs steps 406-412.
Of course, there are a variety of alternative methods that wardrobe closet 200 can utilize to aid the user in the selection of clothing. For example, a group of users may be choose to allow their respective wardrobe closets to share information, such as by transmitting information over the Internet 206. Before a meeting or some other event, a user may utilize the user's wardrobe closet to determine what clothing the other users are wearing to the meeting or social event. The users may agree to remove the clothing they plan to wear from their wardrobe closet the evening before the event so that each user will know what the other users plan to wear. Wardrobe closet 200 may be programmed to alert a user when the user selects clothing that will make the user over or under dressed when compared to the other users. A user may also be alerted when the user selects clothing that is the same or similar to clothing selected by other users.
If the article of clothing is identified as a new article of clothing, articles of clothing owned by the users that form coordinated outfits with the new article of clothing may be displayed on display 202 in step 506. Computer 204 may include a software program for performing this function. Additionally, in step 508, computer 204 may search web sites, such as websites 230 and 234, to locate new articles of clothing that may be of interest to the user. The search process may include utilizing the user's clothing preferences stored in memory 214 and store preferences stored in memory 218. Additional stores identified in clothing stores memory 216 may also be searched.
In step 510, the wardrobe closet determines whether or not the user wishes to purchase article of clothing produced by the search. The new clothing along with price and store information may be displayed on display 202 and the user may be prompted to indicate whether or not the user wishes to purchase the item(s). If the user does not wish to purchase the items, in step 512 the wardrobe closet determines if the user wishes to store an identification of the new clothing in the user's wish list. The user's wish list may be updated by adding an identification of the new clothing to wish list memory 220 in step 514. If the user does wish to purchase the items, the items may be directly ordered from wardrobe closet 200. Wardrobe closet 200 may transmit information such as the user's credit card information and shipping information. Information that facilitates ordering clothing may be stored in memory 306.
The wardrobe closet then determines whether the user removes another article of clothing in step 608. If the user does not remove another article of clothing, in step 614 the user is provided with the options of purchasing items identified by the search or adding items to the user's wish list. If the user does remove another article of clothing, a new search is performed for articles of clothing that form coordinated outfits with the two removed articles of clothing in step 610. The search results may then be displayed to the user in step 612.
The method illustrated in
Next, in step 704, clothing is selected that would be of interest to the user. Computer 236 may contain a software program that searches through the user's clothing inventory, the inventory of brick and mortar store 234 and selects clothes that the user may be interested in purchasing. For example, a software program may determine that the user does not have any shirts that form coordinated outfits with a particular pair of pants owned by the user. The program may then select such a shirt from the brick and mortar store inventory. In step 706, the selected articles of clothing are displayed to the user. The articles of clothing may be displayed on display 238 next to images of the user's existing clothing. This feature allows the user to make judgments relating to color and texture without being forced to rely and the user's memory. Finally, in step 708 one or more coordinated outfits that include the selected items may be displayed to the user.
A user may also allow other parties and trusted merchants to access the user's clothing information. For example, a husband may allow his wife to access information stored in wardrobe server 208 to facilitate shopping. In one embodiment of the invention, third parties and trusted merchants may access the user's clothing information and make suggestions on what a user should buy next. The clothing suggestions may be stored in wardrobe server 208. Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to clothing embodiments and may be extended to other areas.
While the present invention has been described in connection with the illustrated embodiments, it will be appreciated and understood that modifications may be made without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.
This application is a divisional patent application of common-owned, co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/798,232 (“ONLINE WARDROBE”) filed on Mar. 2, 2001 naming Wan, et al., the entire disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 09798232 | Mar 2001 | US |
Child | 11685286 | Mar 2007 | US |