ON CODES WITH THE IDENTIFIABLE PARENT PROPERTY

If C is a q-ary code of length n and a and b are two codewords, then c is called a descendant of a and b if c(i) is an element of {a(i), b(i )} for i = 1, ..., n. We are interested in codes C with the property t hat, given any descendant c, one can always identify at least one of t he ''parent'' codewords in C. We study bounds on F(n, q), the maximal cardinality of a code C with this property, which we call the indentif iable parent property. Such codes play a role in schemes that protect against piracy of software. (C) 1998 Academic Press.