Patent ID: 8855069

Claim:
A method for transmitting downlink data in a mobile communication system comprising a mobile terminal and at least two network nodes, the network nodes being capable of communicating with the mobile terminal via a wireless interface, the method comprising: transmitting a data packet and control information for a downlink transmission of the data packet from a first network node to a second network node, wherein the control information indicates whether the first network node or the second network node terminates a Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) protocol used for transmitting the data packet to the mobile terminal, transmitting by the first network node and the second network node a respective transmission of a data packet to the mobile terminal within one transmission time interval and using one of plural HARQ processes of the HARQ protocol, receiving from the mobile terminal HARQ feedback on the successful or unsuccessful decoding of the data packet only at the network node terminating the HARQ protocol, and transmitting all retransmissions of the data packet only from the network node terminating the HARQ protocol to the mobile terminal, thereby eliminating the need of HARQ protocol synchronization when using HARQ in the downlink with multiple data transmitting network nodes.