Patent ID: 7885263

Claim:
A method for retransmitting packet data within a wireless communication network, the method comprising: forming a plurality of packets for transmission to a receiving entity along a route which was previously used to transmit a missing packet, wherein each of the packets comprises: a header portion comprising a segmentation and reassembly (SAR) sequence number, a first data unit bit and a tunneling bit for indicating a tunneled packet, and a data portion, wherein the data portions of the packets collectively comprise a header portion and a data portion of the missing packet to be retransmitted, and wherein the header portion of the missing packet comprises a protocol layer header which is at a protocol layer that is the same as a protocol layer of each of the header portions of the packets; forming a first packet of the packets such that the header portion of the first packet comprises header information associated with a route used to transmit the packets, and the data portion of the first packet comprises the header portion of the missing packet and data represented by only some of the data portion of the missing packet; forming a second packet of the packets such that the header portion of the second packet comprises header information associated with the route, and a data portion of the second packet comprises only some of the data portion of the missing packet, and fragmenting at least one of the plurality of packets to generate fragmented packets, wherein the fragmented packets each comprise the first data unit bit, the tunneling bit, and a different consecutive sequence number independent of the SAR sequence number, and wherein the fragmented packets are distinguished from the plurality of packets that are not fragmented using the tunneling bit and the first data unit bit, transmitting the formed plurality of packets and the fragmented packets to the receiving entity.