Patent ID: 8462890

Claim:
A method of operating a receiver comprising: receiving a first codeword of a first message as part of a first transmission, the first message corresponding to data prior to being encoded for transmission; receiving a second codeword of a second message as part of a second transmission, the second message corresponding to the data prior to being encoded for transmission, the second message having a known difference from said first message, where said difference includes a value which changes between the first message and the second message; hypothesizing said difference in the value which changes between said first message and said second message, wherein hypothesizing said difference includes hypothesizing that at least one bit is different between said first message and said second message; determining a hypothesized difference between the first codeword and the second codeword, based upon the hypothesized difference between the first message and the second message; and jointly decoding the first codeword of the first message and the second codeword of the second message utilizing said determined hypothesized difference between the first codeword and the second codeword.