Patent 9254640 was granted and assigned to Nike, Inc. on February, 2016 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A flexible manufacturing system for an article of footwear includes a printing system for printing graphics onto the footwear. The flexible manufacturing system also includes a projection system for aligning a projected graphic with a predetermined portion of the article prior to printing the graphic to the article. The graphic can include a masked portion that corresponds to a design element on the article.