IP Library Granted Patent US 12,488,238
Granted Patent B2
US 12,488,238 · App. 17/728,071 · Granted Dec 2, 2025

Information-aware graph contrastive learning

Inventors: Wei Cheng (Princeton Junction, NJ); Dongkuan Xu (State College, PA); Haifeng Chen (West Windsor, NJ)
Assignee: NEC Corporation
G06N3/08
View Patent ↗
Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,488,238
App. No.
17/728,071
Granted
Dec 2, 2025
Kind
B2
Abstract

A method for performing contrastive learning for graph tasks and datasets by employing an information-aware graph contrastive learning framework is presented. The method includes obtaining two semantically similar views of a graph coupled with a label for training by employing a view augmentation component, feeding the two semantically similar views into respective encoder networks to extract latent representations preserving both structure and attribute information in the two views, optimizing a contrastive loss based on a contrastive mode by maximizing feature consistency between the latent representations, training a neural network with the optimized contrastive loss, and predicting a new graph label or a new node label in the graph.

Claims (160)

1 . A method for performing contrastive learning for graph tasks and datasets by employing an information-aware graph contrastive learning framework, the method comprising:

obtaining two semantically similar views of a graph coupled with a label for training by employing a view augmentation component to generate views of the graph that do not affect a semantic label of the graph;

feeding the two semantically similar views into respective separate instances of encoder networks to extract latent representations preserving both structure and attribute information in the two semantically similar views;

selecting a contrastive mode that is characterized by an aggregation operation by solving an optimization problem:

(

c

i

*

,

c

j

*

)

=

argmin

(

c

i

*

,

c

j

*

)

-

I

(

c

i

(

z

i

*

)

;

c

j

(

z

j

*

)

)

where c*i and c*j are aggregation operations applied to latent representations z*i and z*j and where I(.;.) is a mutual information;

minimizing a contrastive loss based on the contrastive mode by maximizing feature consistency between the latent representations;

training a neural network by performing graph contrastive learning with the minimized contrastive loss; and

predicting a new graph label or a new node label in the graph using the neural network trained by the graph contrastive learning, wherein the predictive new graph label or new node label is used to support a decision making process.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the separate instances of encoder networks includes a graph neural network (GNN) backbone and a projection multilayer perceptron (MLP).

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the contrastive mode is selected from the group consisting of a global-global mode, a local-global mode, a local-local mode, a multi-scale mode, and a hybrid-mode.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein, in the global-global mode, graph representations from the two semantically similar views are contrasted.

5 . The method of claim 3 , wherein, in the local-global mode, node representations from the first view of the two semantically similar views are contrasted with graph representations from the second view of the two semantically similar views.

6 . The method of claim 3 , wherein, in the local-local mode, node representations from the two semantically similar views are contrasted.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the new graph label and the new node label are classified as either positive or negative.

8 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a computer-readable program for performing contrastive learning for graph tasks and datasets by employing an information-aware graph contrastive learning framework, wherein the computer-readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to perform the steps of:

obtaining two semantically similar views of a graph coupled with a label for training by employing a view augmentation component to generate views of the graph that do not affect a semantic label of the graph;

feeding the two semantically similar views into respective separate instances of encoder networks to extract latent representations preserving both structure and attribute information in the two semantically similar views;

selecting a contrastive mode that is characterized by an aggregation operation by solving an optimization problem:

(

c

i

*

,

c

j

*

)

=

argmin

(

c

i

*

,

c

j

*

)

-

I

(

c

i

(

z

i

*

)

;

c

j

(

z

j

*

)

)

where c*i and c*j are aggregation operations applied to latent representations z*i and z*j and where I(.;.) is a mutual information;

minimizing a contrastive loss based on the contrastive mode by maximizing feature consistency between the latent representations;

training a neural network by performing graph contrastive learning with the minimized contrastive loss; and

predicting a new graph label or a new node label in the graph using the neural network trained by the graph contrastive learning, wherein the predictive new graph label or new node label is used to support a decision making process.

9 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein each of the separate instances of encoder networks includes a graph neural network (GNN) backbone and a projection multilayer perceptron (MLP).

10 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the contrastive mode is selected from the group consisting of a global-global mode, a local-global mode, a local-local mode, a multi-scale mode, and a hybrid-mode.

11 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein, in the global-global mode, graph representations from the two semantically similar views are contrasted.

12 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein, in the local-global mode, node representations from the first view of the two semantically similar views are contrasted with graph representations from the second view of the two semantically similar views.

13 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein, in the local-local mode, node representations from the two semantically similar views are contrasted.

14 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the new graph label and the new node label are classified as either positive or negative.

15 . A system for performing contrastive learning for graph tasks and datasets by employing an information-aware graph contrastive learning framework, the system comprising:

a memory; and

one or more processors in communication with the memory configured to:

obtain two semantically similar views of a graph coupled with a label for training by employing a view augmentation component to generate views of the graph that do not affect a semantic label of the graph;

feed the two semantically similar views into respective separate instances of encoder networks to extract latent representations preserving both structure and attribute information in the two semantically similar views;

select a contrastive mode that is characterized by an aggregation operation by solving an optimization problem:

(

c

i

*

,

c

j

*

)

=

argmin

(

c

i

*

,

c

j

*

)

-

I

(

c

i

(

z

i

*

)

;

c

j

(

z

j

*

)

)

where c*i and c*j are aggregation operations applied to latent representations z*i and z*j and where I(.;.) is a mutual information;

minimize a contrastive loss based on the contrastive mode by maximizing feature consistency between the latent representations;

train a neural network by performing graph contrastive learning with the minimized contrastive loss; and

predict a new graph label or a new node label in the graph using the neural network trained by the graph contrastive learning, wherein the predictive new graph label or new node label is used to support a decision making process.

16 . The system of claim 15 , wherein each of the separate instances of encoder networks includes a graph neural network (GNN) backbone and a projection multilayer perceptron (MLP).

17 . The system of claim 15 , wherein the contrastive mode is selected from the group consisting of a global-global mode, a local-global mode, a local-local mode, a multi-scale mode, and a hybrid-mode.

18 . The system of claim 17 , wherein, in the global-global mode, graph representations from the two semantically similar views are contrasted.

19 . The system of claim 17 , wherein, in the local-global mode, node representations from the first view of the two semantically similar views are contrasted with graph representations from the second view of the two semantically similar views.

20 . The system of claim 17 , wherein, in the local-local mode, node representations from the two semantically similar views are contrasted.

Assignments (2)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 20, 2025
From: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC.
To: NEC CORPORATION
Reel/Frame 072592/0768 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Apr 25, 2022
From: CHENG, WEI; XU, DONGKUAN; CHEN, HAIFENG
To: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC.
Reel/Frame 059696/0122 →
Continuity (3)
Provisional Application 63316505 · Mar 4, 2022
Provisional Application 63191367 · May 21, 2021
Related Publication 20220383108A1 · Dec 1, 2022
References Cited (16)
US 5289303A · Cloonan · 1994 [cited by examiner]
US 20170124711A1 · Chandraker · 2017 [cited by examiner]
US 20190034798A1 · Yu · 2019 [cited by examiner]
US 20190095806A1 · Martinez Canedo · 2019 [cited by examiner]
US 20200242507A1 · Gan · 2020 [cited by examiner]
US 20210064931A1 · Yang · 2021 [cited by examiner]
US 20210110262A1 · Schmitt · 2021 [cited by examiner]
US 20210326660A1 · Krishnan · 2021 [cited by examiner]
US 20220156591A1 · Li · 2022 [cited by examiner]
WO WO2017031356A1 · 2017 [cited by examiner]
Glocalized Weisfeiler—Lehman Graph Kernels: Global—Local Feature Maps of Graphs—Morris et al. (Year: 2017). [cited by examiner]
Kipf, Thomas N. and Max Welling, “Semi-supervised classification with graph convolutional networks.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.02907v4, Feb. 22, 2017, pp. 1-14. [cited by applicant]
Veličković, Petar, et al. “Graph attention networks.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.10903v3, Feb. 4, 2018, pp. 1-12. [cited by applicant]
Xu, Keyulu, et al. “How powerful are graph neural networks?” arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.00826v3, Feb. 22, 2019, pp. 1-17 [cited by applicant]
Hamilton, Will, Zhitao Ying, and Jure Leskovec, “Inductive representation learning on large graphs.” Advances in neural information processing systems 30, 2017, pp. 1-11. [cited by applicant]
Yuning You et al., “Graph contrastive learning with augmentation”, arXiv:201, 13902v3 [cs.LG], pp. 1-12, Apr. 2021 (see pp. 1, 4; and figure 1). [cited by applicant]