Patent ID: 8195166

Claim:
A method for mobility management of user equipment (UE) in a long term evolution (LTE) system, the method comprising: a UE connected to a serving cell, the UE performing: determining a set of virtual channels of interest to the UE; determining that the UE is in one of a plurality of ACTIVE states based on whether or not the UE is transmitting or receiving on one of the virtual channels of interest to the UE; detecting occurrence of an event effecting service availability for the UE; determining behavior of the UE based on the ACTIVE state of the UE and the occurrence of the event; wherein a first virtual channel of the plurality of virtual channels of interest to the UE comprises an uplink path and a downlink path, wherein the first virtual channel supports media transmissions for a first application on the UE, wherein the ACTIVE state comprises the UE transmitting on the uplink path, wherein when the event comprises the UE receiving, from the serving cell, a command to execute a handover to a target cell, the UE performing: determining whether the target cell supports the first virtual channel; when the target cell supports the first virtual channel, executing the handover to the target cell; when the target cell does not support the first virtual channel, but a second application that does not use the first virtual channel is running on the UE and is exchanging information with the serving cell, executing the handover to the target cell, and releasing a bearer that comprises the uplink path; otherwise, ignoring the command to execute the handover to the target cell.