Chapter 35This level of the B-I Triangle, legal management, was one of the most painful lessons I ever had to learn. My rich dad iden- tified a serious flaw in my business: I had failed to secure the legal rights to the nylon and Velcro products I had designed before I started producing them. More specifically, I failed to patent some of my products (I failed to do so because I be- lieved the $10,000 in patent attorney fees was too expensive and not important enough to spend that much money on). Another company quickly came along and copied my idea, and I could do nothing about it. Today, I am now an evangelist for the other side. Today, es- pecially in the Information Age, your intellectual property at- Legal Management 361 torney and your contract attorney are some of your most im- portant advisors because they help create your most impor- tant assets. These attorneys, if they are good, will protect your ideas and your agreements from intellectual bandits, people who steal your ideas and therefore your profits. The world of business is filled with stories of smart entre- preneurs with great ideas who begin selling their products or ideas before protecting them. In the world of intellectual property, once your idea is exposed, it is almost impossible to protect. Not too long ago, a company came out with a spread- sheet program for small businesses. I bought this brilliant product for my company. A few years later, the company was out of business. Why? Because it had failed to patent its idea and another company, which I will not mention, came along, took its idea, and put it out of business. Today, the company that took the idea is a prominent leader in the software business. It is said that Bill Gates became the richest man in the world with only an idea. In other words, he did not get rich by investing in real estate or factories. He simply took informa- tion, protected the information, and became the richest man in the world while still in his thirties. The irony of it all is that he didn't even create the Microsoft operating system. He bought it from other programmers, sold it to IBM, and the rest is history. Aristotle Onassis became a shipping giant with a simple legal document. It was a contract from a large manufacturing company guaranteeing him the exclusive rights to transport its cargo all over the world. All he had was this document. He owned no ships. Yet with this legal document, he was able to convince the banks to lend him the money to buy the ships. Where did he get the ships? He got them from the U.S. gov- ernment after WW II. The U.S. government had a surplus of Liberty and Victory class ships used to haul war materials from 362 Rich Dad's Guide to Investing America to Europe. There was one catch. In order to buy the ships, the person needed to be a U.S. citizen and Onassis was a Greek citizen. Did that stop him? Of course it didn't.