Sovereign Edit-Distance Tracking with Per-Iteration Signed Lineage for Iteratively Refined Generative Assets.

Per-iteration domain-distance metric paired with a signed iteration tree retaining abandoned branches.

A method and system for producing a regulator-walkable cryptographic lineage of an iteratively refined generative asset, in which each iteration is captured, measured under a domain-appropriate edit-distance metric, and signed at the moment it is produced. The parent-child relationship is recorded as an edge of an iteration tree, signed under a post-quantum digital signature in operator-controlled hardware; abandoned branches are retained under a configurable retention policy and themselves signed and hash-linked into the same lineage. A downstream verifier given the final asset, the manifest, and the operator public key walks the lineage from the final artefact back through every accepted and abandoned iteration to the first generation, supporting derivative-work copyright clearance, AI-output authorship determination, and forensic analysis of how the final artefact was reached. Filed 21 May 2026 as GB2611897.6.