Patent Document ID: 20120054859
Application ID: 12872728
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. 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 classifying an electronic messages, the method comprising: an act of receiving an electronic message, the electronic message send from a sender to a recipient; an act of identifying a level of service applicable to the received electronic message based on one or more of: the sender and the recipient, the level of service defining at least a minimum effectiveness value and a maximum cost value, the minimum effectiveness value representing the minimum cumulative total effectiveness that a combination of message classification rules is to have to satisfy the level of service, the maximum cost value representing a total amount of resources that can be used to apply message classification rules to an electronic message; an act of applying one or more message classification rules to the received electronic message in order of efficiency until the minimum cumulative total effectiveness defined in the level of service is achieved, each message classification rule having a measured effectiveness, a measured resource cost, and a calculated efficiency based on the measured effectiveness in view of the measured resource cost, the measured effectiveness representing a probability of appropriately classifying electronic messages as having a specified message characteristic, including for each of the applied one or more message classification rules: an act of applying the message classification rule to the electronic message to generate a result indicating a likelihood of the electronic message having the specified message characteristic; and an act of adding the measured resource cost for the applied message classification rule to a cumulative amount of consumed resources, the cumulative amount of consumed resource calculated by summing the measured resource costs from previously applied message classification rules in the one or more message classification rules; an act of determining if the cumulative amount of consumed resources is less than the selected maximum cost value; and an act of applying additional message classification rules to electronic messages based on the determination.