Patent ID: 8560614

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving an email message comprising a plurality of items; scanning the email message with a plurality of scanner software, which are configured to perform activities that are based on a same decomposition tree used for scanning the e-mail message; expanding the decomposition tree to satisfy sub-trees for scanners in the plurality of scanner software; and employing a recursive function that identifies a node in the decomposition tree and a list of scanners with which to scan, wherein: on the root node of the decomposition tree, the list of scanners comprises the plurality of scanners; at each iteration of the recursive function, each scanner in the list of scanners is called to perform a scanning operation on the e-mail message and return whether it is satisfied such that it is removed from the list of scanners; if there are any remaining scanners in the list, the node in the decomposition tree is decomposed; and the recursive function is complete when the plurality of scanners have been removed from the list of scanners.