Patent ID: 8204028

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a transceiver adapted for use in a wireless personal area network, wherein said transceiver is configured for spatial reuse using a virtual time division multiple access (TDMA) technique based on a directional transmission to a receiving device, wherein the spatial reuse allows additional non-interfering spatially-separate transceivers to perform concurrent communications without interfering with the directional transmission of said transceiver, wherein all links associated with said transceiver and said additional transceivers are divided into a number of spatial reuse groups based on a message flow wherein: under a centralized MAC, a Coordinator sends an announcement on a control channel including time and a data channel used for the directional transmission, or under a distributed MAC, said transceiver sends an announcement on the control channel including information regarding the directional transmission, upon receiving the announcement, said additional transceivers each determine, for a predetermined amount of time, whether the directional transmission is receive thereby, and each of said additional transceivers indicate, on the control channel, compatibility with the directional transmission, if that additional transceiver does not hear the directional transmission within the predetermined amount of time, otherwise indicate incompatibility with the directional transmission.