Patent ID: 7567536

Claim:
A method of restricting acknowledgment signals transmitted from a plurality of base stations (BSs), which are active set BSs (ASBSs) of a user equipment entity (UE) in a wireless communication system, to the UE in response to uplink (UL) data packets transmitted from the UE to the ASBSs, comprising acts by the UE of: (a) monitoring channel conditions between the UE and each of the ASBSs; (b) evaluating an expected effectiveness of acknowledgment signaling from each of the ASBSs to the UE; (c) selecting, based on step (a), an ACK target status category for each of the ASBSs, including (i) selecting an “Off” ACK target status category for at least one ASBS from which acknowledgment signals to the UE should be temporarily suspended while transmission of at least one other signal to the UE is continued, and (ii) selecting a plurality of “On” ACK target status categories for a corresponding plurality of other ASBSs from which allowable acknowledgment signals corresponding to data packet reception success should be transmitted to the UE, including selecting an unrestricted “On” category for at least one ASBS wherein all acknowledgment signals recognized by the UE are deemed allowable for transmission from such ASBS to the UE, and selecting a restricted “On” category for at least one other ASBS wherein only a reduced subset of such recognized acknowledgment signals are deemed allowable for transmission to the UE by such other ASBS; and (d) transmitting one or more ACK Target Messages to the ASBSs that provide information sufficient for each ASBS to determine its ACK Target status category for purposes of responding to a corresponding data packet transmission from the UE to such ASBS.