Patent ID: 7149200

Claim:
A mobile station, for use in a CDMA communications network, comprising: a wanted signal processing portion which processes an input signal, representing a CDMA transmission signal received at the mobile station from a base station of the network, to derive therefrom a wanted signal embodying a preselected spreading code; a code information receiving portion which receives from the base station code information identifying a further spreading code assigned by the network to an interfering signal of another network user; and an interfering signal process portion which employs the further spreading code identified by the received code information to reduce the interference effect of that interfering signal on the derived wanted signal, wherein said input signal of the wanted signal processing portion is pre-processed by the interfering signal processing portion to reduce or cancel components in the input signal associated with each said interfering signal, said interfering signal processing portion is operable to derive, for each said interfering signal, a corresponding interference cancellation signal representative of a component in said input signal associated with that interfering signal, and said interfering signal processing portion has, for each said interfering signal, a corresponding processing unit for deriving said interference cancellation signal corresponding to that interfering signal, which processing unit comprises: a code generator which generates the identified spreading code assigned to said interfering signal; a despreader connected for receiving a first signal representing the received CDMA transmission signal and also connected to said code generator for receiving the generated spreading code, and operable to despread the first signal to produce a second signal representing said interfering signal; and a respreader connected to said despreader for receiving therefrom said second signal and also connected to said code generator for receiving the generated spreading code, and operable to respread said second signal to produce said corresponding interference cancellation signal.