Patent ID: 8041297

Claim:
A method for supporting a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) communication in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: identifying whether a Mobile Station (MS) is in a wireless communication state, a P2P state, or an idle state in which the MS operates in neither the wireless communication state nor the P2P; and transiting to the P2P state when a control message for a P2P communication occurs in the idle state, and transiting to the wireless communication state when a control message for a wireless communication occurs in the idle state, wherein the wireless communication state includes a wireless communication active state in which radio resources may be allocated in a first Medium Access Control (MAC) layer, and a wireless communication sleep state in which a call is open without transmission or reception of data, wherein the P2P state includes a P2P active state in which radio resources can be allocated in a MAC layer for a P2P communication, and a P2P sleep state in which a call is open with no data reception or transmission, and wherein the idle state includes a P2P previous active state in which a beacon message sent by a peer MS can be received.