Patent 8386870 was granted and assigned to Wi-Lan Inc. on February, 2013 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A mechanism is provided to allow an HARQ retransmission to more closely match the receiver's need for energy with the additional energy sent over the wireless link. In one aspect, the receiver sends the transmitter qualitative feedback which indicates to the transmitter an approximate amount of additional energy that the receiver needs to successfully decode the transmission.