Patent ID: 8666988

Claim:
A method to configure a network of classifiers, wherein each classifier comprises executable code that classifies data, the method comprising: configuring, by a configuration application executing on a computer system, a network of classifiers, wherein a first classifier of the network has at least two output branches to output data classified as having a particular characteristic to another second classifier of the network, wherein the configuring associates a different operating point with each output branch, wherein each operating point comprises a probability pair comprising a first probability for determining that a data item output to the second classifier has the particular characteristic and a second probability that said determination falsely detected the characteristic, wherein the probability pairs of each operating point differ from one another; associating, by the configuration application, a different quality profile with each operating point, wherein each quality profile indicates that data classified according to the corresponding operating point has a different level of confidence; and storing the configured network of classifiers and quality profile associations in the computer system.