Apparatus and method of block acknowledgements with reduced recipient state information

A method of generating an immediate block acknowledgement by a recipient station via partial state operation, comprising:

• receiving a data unit associated with a block acknowledgement agreement between an originator station and the recipient station;
• generating and storing a temporary block acknowledgement record if no temporary block acknowledgement record for the agreement exists when the data unit is received;
• modifying the temporary block acknowledgement record based on the received data unit if the temporary block acknowledgement record for the agreement exists when the data unit is received;
• generating the immediate block acknowledgement for the originator station based on the temporary block acknowledgement record;
• and
• discarding the temporary block acknowledgement record when a data unit is received from a different originator station.

A method of managing an immediate block acknowledgement scoreboard by a recipient station during partial state operation, comprising:

• receiving a data unit associated with a first block acknowledgement agreement between the recipient station and a first originator station;
• generating and storing a temporary block acknowledgement record if no temporary block acknowledgement record for the first block acknowledgement agreement exists when the data unit is received;
• modifying the temporary block acknowledgement record based on the received data unit if the temporary block acknowledgement record for the first block acknowledgement agreement exists when the data unit is received;
• receiving another data unit associated with a second block acknowledgement agreement between the recipient station and a second originator station that is different from the first originator station;
• and
• discarding the temporary block acknowledgement record after receiving the another data unit from the second originator station.

A method of managing an immediate block acknowledgement scoreboard by a recipient station during partial state operation, comprising:

• generating and storing in a memory a temporary block acknowledgement record for a block acknowledgement agreement between an originator station and the recipient station;
• maintaining the temporary block acknowledgement record as long as the recipient station receives data from the originator station;
• and
• discarding the temporary block acknowledgement record when the recipient station receives data from a different station than the originator station.