Patent Document ID: 9524334
Application ID: 14938573
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for classifying messages, the method comprising: receiving an electronic message over a communication network; and executing instructions stored in memory, wherein execution of the instructions by a processor: scans the received electronic message to identify candidate sections that include top-level domains, wherein the scanned candidate sections include the body of the received electronic message, identifies one or more top-level domain names in each candidate section, wherein at least one of the identified top-level domain names is part of an email address, verifies that the email address associated with the at least one top-level domain name from the electronic message is valid based on detected presence of required characters, identifies that the email address associated with the at least one top-level domain name from the electronic message does not include any forbidden characters, characterizes the electronic message as having one or more distinguishing features based on the verification that the email address includes the required characters and the identification that the email address does not include the forbidden characters, wherein the distinguishing features include at least email addresses that have the required characters and that lack the forbidden characters, generates a signature for the characterized electronic message based on a set of distinguishing features; and storing the generated signature for the electronic message in memory for comparison to subsequently received electronic messages.