Patent ID: 8306031

Claim:
A method of performing wireless communications, comprising: receiving at a receiving unit a sequence of data blocks from a transmitting unit; determining a last valid data block as a cumulative value; identifying at the receiving unit a first number of invalid sequential data blocks in the sequence after the last data block corresponding to the cumulative value; identifying at the receiving unit a second number of valid sequential data blocks in the sequence; and communicating from the receiving unit a wireless message to the transmitting unit, the wireless message comprising; the cumulative value; a first field that specifies the first number after the last data block corresponding to the cumulative value; and a second field that specifies the second number, wherein an encoding of the first field within an ACK type that uses the cumulative value is operable to specify a different maximum than an encoding of the second field within the same ACK type that uses the cumulative value, wherein the second number of valid sequential data blocks follows the first number of invalid sequential data blocks in the sequence within the same ACK type that uses the cumulative value, wherein a sequence of indicators within the same ACK type that uses the cumulative value determines respective lengths of the first and second fields, wherein the sequence of indicators are not themselves the first and second fields.