Patent ID: 7420921

Claim:
A wireless local area network method, comprising: transmitting data from a transmitter to a receiver within a wireless local area network; receiving a portion of the data at the receiver; determining a status of the portion of the received data that corresponds to a positive acknowledgement, a negative acknowledgement, or an indication of a lack of information regarding the status of delivery of the portion of the received data; constructing an aggregated fragment acknowledgement frame that indicates the status of the portion of the received data, the portion of the received data comprising a fragment portion; transmitting the aggregated fragment acknowledgement frame from the receiver to the transmitter; receiving the aggregated fragment acknowledgement frame at the transmitter; decoding the aggregated fragment acknowledgement frame at the transmitter; and selectively re-sending at least one additional portion of the data from the transmitter to the receiver based on the indicated status of the portion of the received data; and wherein: the indicated status of the portion of the received data, within the aggregated fragment acknowledgement frame, comprises an acknowledgement status field; the acknowledgement status field comprising a compressed acknowledgement status field and selectively comprising an expanded acknowledgement status field when indicated by information within the compressed acknowledgement status field; the compressed acknowledgement status field comprises a plurality of two-bit pairs to indicate status of a plurality of medium access controller service data units; and the expanded acknowledgement status field comprises at least one bit to indicate status of a fragment portion of at least one of the medium access controller service data units within the plurality of medium access controller service data units.