Patent ID: 8397120

Claim:
A method of error correction for a multicast message sent over a wireless network, the method comprising: encoding a message into N data packets using a forward error correction code such that a subset of L data packets of the N data packets is needed to decode the message; multicasting at least K (where N>K≧L) data packets of the N data packets over the wireless network to a plurality of recipients; receiving a first reply from at least one recipient not receiving at least L data packets; selecting a second subset of X data packets from the N data packets by calculating a number J of data packets that the at least one recipient still needs to receive, where J=L−H and H is the number of data packets received among all recipients, and selecting X data packets from the N data packets such that X≧J, wherein X is selected such that X=J×R, where R is a redundancy factor and in a range from 1 to (N−L)/J, and X is in a range from J to (N−L); and multicasting the X data packets over the wireless network to the plurality of recipients.