I can barely make toast. The same is true with a patent. To effectively use a patent, the owner will probably need to impart a significant amount of know-how. There may also be new techniques and processes not mentioned in the original patent. Incidentally, that happens to be one of my major complaints with patents.
Patents seek to crystallise an invention at a specific point in time.
In the real world, a good invention is in a continuous state of evolution. For that reason, a patent is always one step behind the inventor. Know-how does not suffer from this impediment. A patent can only speak for the novelty of the claims therein as at a finite date. Let s now consider some of the standard exceptions that appear in most non-disclosure agreements.