Patent Document ID: 7747285
Application ID: 11776046
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of determining a plurality of beamforming weights for application to multicast transmission to a plurality of users by a corresponding plurality of antennas associated with a base station, comprising: determining a covariance matrix associated with the plurality of users, said covariance matrix being a function of a channel matrix and a noise-plus-interference vector associated with at least a portion of the plurality of users; determining the plurality of beamforming weights based on a gradient of the covariance matrix associated with a selected one of the plurality of users, wherein determining the plurality of beamforming weights comprises selecting one of the plurality of users that has the lowest signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio above a selected threshold value of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio; and transmitting at least one multicast signal from the plurality of antennas using the determined beamforming weights associated with the plurality of antennas.