Patent ID: 8681729

Claim:
A method for reserving radio resources in radio resource block units in a mobile communication system for a plurality of users, the method comprising: associating each resource block to a portion of an available frequency resource in a frequency domain and to a time slot in a time domain, reserving resource blocks for the plurality of users for downlink data transmission to the users for a reservation period comprising a plurality of consecutive time slots, wherein at least one resource block reserved for an individual one of the plurality of users is also reserved for another user, transmitting from a transmitting entity a downlink configuration message indicating which of the plurality of resource blocks is reserved for which user or users of the plurality of users, wherein the reserved resource blocks for a respective user within a given reservation period are indicated by way of a reservation pattern in at least the time domain and the frequency domain, and scheduling downlink transmissions to users, including the plurality of users, on a per transmission time interval basis, wherein the scheduling includes deciding whether or not to allocate a resource block reserved for the user to said user.