Patent ID: 8792426

Claim:
A method for managing control resources in a wireless communication system, comprising: identifying a set of control channel groups associated with a first spreading factor and a corresponding set of control resources; grouping the set of control channel groups into N supergroups for a predetermined integer N, each supergroup having a plurality of different control channel groups, each supergroup being associated with a second spreading factor that is greater than the first spreading factor; dividing the set of control resources into N non-overlapping subsets; and mapping the supergroups to respective subsets of the control resources; wherein the predetermined integer N is equal to 2; wherein the wireless communication system utilizes an extended cyclic prefix; the first spreading factor being expanded to the second spreading factor at least in part by appending zeros to the first spreading factor at a first set of code positions for respective control channel groups in a first supergroup and at a second set of code positions that is non-overlapping with the first set of code positions for respective control channel groups in a second supergroup.