Patent ID: 6985726

Claim:
A method of format detection for information received over a communication system, the method comprising the step of determining the format of the received information by decoding received information extracted from a defined guiding channel, wherein information size values obtained from a defined list of size values for the guiding channel are used in the decoding, wherein the step of determining the format comprises the steps of: extracting received information from other channels of the communications system; performing decoding operations on the extracted guiding channel information M times where M is an integer that represents a total number of information size values in said list; deciding which of the M decoding operations resulted in a correct decode; and determining the format of the received information from the information size value of the guiding channel that yielded the correct decode, and wherein the step of deciding which of the M decoding operations resulted in a correct decode comprises the steps of: performing at least one decode operation on the extracted guiding channel information yielding at least one decode result; and applying the at least one decode result to an algorithm for deciding whether there is a correct decode and which information size value yielded such correct decode, wherein the communication system is a 3GPP compliant UMTS where the guiding channel is TrCh 1 and the decoding operations comprise convolutional decoding yielding a result on which a tail bit test and CRC decoding are performed wherein each such operation is performed M times.