To provide network friendly scalability, scalable video coding (SVC) has been finalized as an H.264/AVC scalable extension. Because SVC supports a inter layer prediction scheme to determine the best coding mode in an enhancement layer, it achieves high coding efficiency but increases computational complexity. To reduce the computational complexity, we propose a fast and efficient mode decision scheme for enhancement layer using the coded block pattern for 16×16 mode of the current and previous pictures. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the processing time about 41.30% with negligible loss in coding efficiency.