It's 20 years this month since the launch of Espacenet - one of the largest free to use patent databases in the world.

Espacenet allows anyone access to over 100 million patent documents from over 100 countries.

That's a pretty phenomenal resource.

So, next time you are looking for some competitor insight, or an idea of the latest developments in a particular field, I suggest you take a look at what's out there in the patent world.