Patent ID: 8233928

Claim:
A spectrum management system for radio systems, comprising: an interface to communicate with the radio systems over a network; and a processor that executes a spectrum allocation function that is stored in a memory and, by execution of the spectrum allocation function, the spectrum management system is configured to: receive data indicating that a priority radio system having spectrum use rights that dominate spectrum use rights of secondary radio systems has a need for spectrum; determine one or more secondary radio systems that are impacted by the priority radio system due to location and spectrum use rights of the second radio systems that are determined to be in potential contention with operation of the priority radio system; and communicate with the impacted secondary radio systems to free spectrum from the impacted secondary radio systems for use by the priority radio system; and wherein the communication with the impacted secondary radio systems includes transmitting a revocation message to each of the impacted secondary radio systems, each revocation message revoking at least some of the spectrum use rights of the corresponding secondary radio system; and wherein the spectrum management system is further configured to determine if an acknowledgement is received from the secondary radio system in response to the revocation message within a predetermined amount of time from transmission of the revocation message.