Patent ID: 7769401

Claim:
At a given base station among a plurality of base stations in a wireless communication system, a method of scheduling uplink transmissions among a plurality of mobile wireless communication devices, said method comprising: selecting a given time slot among a plurality of time slots in a scheduling time frame; for each mobile wireless communication device in a first subset of said plurality of mobile wireless communication devices, where said each mobile wireless communication device in said first subset is associated with said given base station, determining a first priority factor for said given time slot, where said determining includes: determining a potential interference profile for said each mobile wireless communication device in said given time slot, where said potential interference profile includes an estimate of interference that transmissions from said each mobile may cause at each base station in a subset of said plurality of base stations; and determining a correlation between said potential interference profile and a target interference pattern associated with said given time slot; selecting a candidate mobile wireless communication device having an optimum priority index among said mobile wireless communication devices in said first subset of said plurality of mobile wireless communication devices, where said priority index is based, at least in part, on said first priority factor; and transmitting a schedule to said candidate mobile wireless communication device, where said schedule indicates that said candidate mobile wireless communication device is permitted to send uplink transmissions to said given base station in said given time slot.