  The lattice potential Korteweg-de Vries equation (LKdV) is a partial
difference equation in two independent variables, which possesses many
properties that are analogous to those of the celebrated Korteweg-de Vries
equation. These include discrete soliton solutions, Backlund transformations
and an associated linear problem, called a Lax pair, for which it provides the
compatibility condition. In this paper, we solve the initial value problem for
the LKdV equation through a discrete implementation of the inverse scattering
transform method applied to the Lax pair. The initial value used for the LKdV
equation is assumed to be real and decaying to zero as the absolute value of
the discrete spatial variable approaches large values. An interesting feature
of our approach is the solution of a discrete Gel'fand-Levitan equation.
Moreover, we provide a complete characterization of reflectionless potentials
and show that this leads to the Cauchy matrix form of N-soliton solutions.
