Patent ID: 7929509

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a receiver that receives one or more signals from one or more remote stations, each signal comprising one of a plurality of scrambling codes, each scrambling code associated with one of a plurality of code groups, each code group comprising a subset of the plurality of scrambling codes, and each code group identified by a unique series of a predetermined number of first synchronization codes selected from a plurality of first synchronization codes; a first searcher that identifies a subset of first synchronization codes, the subset of first synchronization codes comprising fewer than the predetermined number; and a processor that determines at least one hypothesis based on the subset of first synchronization codes, each hypothesis representing a likely code group including the subset of first synchronization codes; wherein the processor is configured to test at least one hypothesis to determine whether at least one hypothesis is associated with a valid transmission while simultaneously determining a reduced hypothesis set derived from the at least one hypothesis by evaluating at least one additional subset of first synchronization codes.