Patent ID: 8020065

Claim:
A method to process bits in a bit stream, the method comprising: scrambling the bit stream; separating the scrambled bit stream into separate high priority bits and low priority bits to form a high priority bit stream and a low priority bit stream, the high priority bit stream having an order of high priority bits from left to right and the low priority bit stream having an order of low priority bits from left to right; rearranging the bits by embedding the high priority bits from the high priority bit stream in the low priority bit stream to form a rearranged bit stream while preserving the order of the high priority bits and the order of the low priority bits in the rearranged bit stream, the rearranged bit stream including blocks of bits, each block including one or more adjacent high priority bits disposed left of corresponding one or more adjacent low priority bits in order to provide protection for the high priority bits against noise which is at least equal to protection for the low priority bits in the block; modulating the rearranged bit stream using Gray encoding method to produce an encoded bit stream; and transmitting the encoded bit stream to a communication medium.