I don't understand how you would be handing it over to your competitors: 1) if it is proprietary software, just add a clause which forbids reverse engineering.

I don't understand how you would be handing it over to your competitors: 1) if it is proprietary software, just add a clause which forbids reverse engineering. If it really is as complex as you describe however, I doubt reverse engineering it would be an option. 2) if it is open source software, I don't see the big deal. Even if they get the algorithm your software can still stay steps ahead of theirs. So what advantage would a patent even give you in this case?