Here's what General Mills has to say to anyone submitting an idea to them for a new product or product use... pay special attention to the part I highlighted in red:
Our policy on suggestions and idea submissions-
All comments, suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, recipes or other information disclosed or offered to General Mills by this site or in response to solicitations in this site shall be deemed and shall remain the property of General Mills. You understand and acknowledge that General Mills has both internal resources and other external resources which may have developed or may in the future develop ideas identical to or similar to the suggestion or comments to suggestions and that General Mills is only willing to consider the suggestion on these terms. That, in any event, any suggestion is not submitted in confidence and General Mills assumes no obligation express or applied by considering it. Without limitation, General Mills shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the suggestions of every kind and nature throughout the Universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the comments for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise without compensation to the provider of the suggestions.
so much for those Martian submissions in the near future...
Our policy on suggestions and idea submissions-
All comments, suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, recipes or other information disclosed or offered to General Mills by this site or in response to solicitations in this site shall be deemed and shall remain the property of General Mills. You understand and acknowledge that General Mills has both internal resources and other external resources which may have developed or may in the future develop ideas identical to or similar to the suggestion or comments to suggestions and that General Mills is only willing to consider the suggestion on these terms. That, in any event, any suggestion is not submitted in confidence and General Mills assumes no obligation express or applied by considering it. Without limitation, General Mills shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the suggestions of every kind and nature throughout the Universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the comments for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise without compensation to the provider of the suggestions.
so much for those Martian submissions in the near future...