Patent ID: 8832515

Claim:
A method comprising: sending a sequence number acknowledgement (SN-ACK) from a first device to a second device via a wireless network, the SN-ACK associated with a plurality of data units sent by the second device to the first device, wherein the SN-ACK identifies a last consecutively correctly received data unit of the plurality of data units, and wherein the SN-ACK includes a retry bit indicating whether at least one data unit of the plurality of data units was received by the first device subsequent to the last consecutively correctly received data unit; when the retry bit has a first value, sending a compressed block ACK (C-BA) to the second device after sending the SN-ACK, wherein the C-BA indicates whether each of the plurality of data units following the last consecutively correctly received data unit was correctly received by the first device, and wherein the C-BA includes: a starting sequence number (SSN) indicating an earliest erroneous data unit of the plurality of data units or a second-earliest erroneous data unit of the plurality of data units; a sequence number (SN) indicating a latest erroneous data unit of the plurality of data units; and a bitmap, wherein each particular bit of the bitmap indicates whether a corresponding data unit of the plurality of data units was correctly received by the first device, and wherein the plurality of data units comprises a sequence of data units from the earliest or the second-earliest erroneous data unit to the latest erroneous data unit; and when the retry bit has a second value and one or more of the plurality of data units were incorrectly received by the first device, receiving a retransmission of the one or more data units without sending the C-BA to the second device.