This is why movie studios explicitly say they won't read your scripts and film suggestions if you send one in. They want to be able to make a film without the danger of being sued for stealing ideas.
As the world's largest toy company, Mattel employs a large staff of designers to develop new ideas....
Because of this... Mattel does not accept or consider any unsolicited ideas or materials for products or services, or even improvements to products or services, such as ideas, concepts, inventions, or designs for toys, games, videogames, books, scripts, screenplays..... Therefore, you must not send to Mattel.... any Unsolicited Ideas and Materials. Any Unsolicited Ideas and Materials you post on or send ... will be treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary User-Generated Content – regardless of whether you mark them "confidential", "proprietary", or the like.
Mattel finds that many submissions that it receives... are already in the public domain; or are identical or substantially similar to products developed or in development by our own staff; or, for a host of many other reasons, are not novel or unique. So if, you send us any of your Unsolicited Ideas and Materials despite our request that you not do so, it's likely they're identical or substantially similar to ideas, concepts, and materials that, in the past, were developed by our staff or submitted to us by others.
Most (all?) video game developers do the same: A disclosure that says "we have LOTS of ideas already, and your ideas may be similar, so we can't agree not to create anything that includes your ideas."
