I think it unlikely that you can get money or credit/ownership from them for an idea - at least not without spending money on patents and lawyers to enforce tha

I think it unlikely that you can get money or credit/ownership from them for an idea - at least not without spending money on patents and lawyers to enforce that patent. Basically, ideas are worthless without execution. Now if you can make a product that performs this improvement you might be able to license it to them. I created and licensed some software to a company once.