Patent ID: 8553713

Claim:
A method for determining a search space, the method comprising: determining a number of downlink control information bits of each type of control channel currently required to be monitored by a user equipment (UE); determining a temporary search space corresponding to each type of control channel currently required to be monitored by the UE, according to a mapping relationship between a component carrier for carrying a data channel and a component carrier for carrying a control channel, wherein the mapping relationship is currently used by the UE; and determining that an actual search space corresponding to a selected type of control channel is all control channel elements (CCEs) of a union of temporary search spaces corresponding to all or a part of control channels with a same number of the downlink control information bits, or a part of the CCEs of the union of the temporary search spaces corresponding to all or a part of the control channels with the same number of the downlink control information bits, for control channels that are currently required to be monitored by the UE and are of a same CCE aggregation level, when a number of downlink control information bits of one or more other types of control channels is equal to a number of downlink control information bits of the selected type of control channel; wherein the one or more other types of control channels are one or more types of control channels that are currently required to be monitored by the UE and are of the same CCE aggregation level except the selected type of control channel, and the all or a part of control channels with the same number of the downlink control information bits are all or a part of control channels with a same number of downlink control information bits of a control channel set formed by the one or more other types of control channels and the selected type of control channel.