Patent ID: 8464342

Claim:
At a computer system including one or more processors and system memory, the computer system including a plurality of electronic message classification rules, a method for adaptively selecting rules used to classify electronic messages, the method comprising: an act of receiving one or more electronic messages; for each of the one or more electronic messages, an act of calculating a result indicating a likelihood of the electronic message having a specified message characteristic by applying each message classification rule in a previously selected subset of electronic message classification rules; an act of measuring a resource cost indicating an amount of resources consumed to apply each electronic message classification rule to each of the one or more the electronic messages; for each message classification rule in the previously selected subset of message classification rules, an act of synthesizing an efficiency metric from the calculated results and measured resource costs for the message classification rule, the efficiency metric being a metric defining the efficiency of classifying an electronic message; an act of comparing the synthesized efficiency metrics to existing efficiency metrics for electronic message classification rules included in the plurality of electronic message classification rules; and an act of selecting a new subset of electronic message classification rules, from among the plurality of electronic message classification rules, for use in classifying subsequently received electronic messages based at least in part on results of comparing the synthesized efficiency metrics to existing efficiency metrics.