Patent ID: 7636342

Claim:
A wireless local area network (WLAN) device for transmitting data units, comprising: a media access control (MAC) layer protocol module for numbering data units with sequence numbers, wherein the data units comprise MAC management protocol data units (MMPDUs) and MAC service data units (MSDUs), each data unit comprises a receiver address, and the MAC layer protocol module comprises: a numbering module for numbering each data unit with a respective sequence number according to the receiver address of the data unit, the numbering module comprising: a counting list module comprising a plurality of counting modules for numbering each data unit with a sequence number; and a selection module for selecting a first counting module for numbering the data unit with a sequence number according to the receiver address of the data unit if the data unit is an MMPDU, and a second counting module for numbering the data unit with a sequence number according to the receiver address of the data unit if the data unit is an MSDU; wherein the first counting module numbers the MMPDU with a sequence number according to a first mathematical function, the second counting module numbers the MSDU with a sequence number according to a second mathematical, and the first mathematical function is different from the second mathematical function.