Need some advise. I suggested a feature over an email to a CEO of a B$ company, he replied “we also have same idea in pipeline”, they developed it 3 years later. A lot of screens are same as I sent.
Can I ask for credit legally.

You might want to go to r/legaladvice

All the employees of the company are all working for the same goal. Not being recognized as the author of some ideas is irrelevant. You are paid to do good for the company. You are a cog in a huge machine (think London in Eternal Engines).

Did you pitch a good idea for the company's benefit and were you paid for that time? Great, you did your job.
Did they already have that idea in mind but used some details from your suggestion to even make it better? Great, your ideas were worthy implementing - feel good about it.

I don't see any bone you could pick with them.

I don’t work for that company @netikras

Sounds like a copyright infringement

@electrineer I don’t work for that company but I also sent the idea to him via mail. Is it still infringement?

@undefined7 oh, in that case - yeah, get in touch with legal.

I do hope there are records of you suggesting those ideas :) Otherwise, it would be your word against theirs.

@netikras yes I do have emails

@undefined7 You would have to prove that he took your design not your idea. Ideas are generally not copyrightable.

I feel like what you did was so charitable in your heart, yet so stupid in real life...

Because of CEO's like that one, people with ideas end up starting their own company, which leaves us with dozens of different companies offering the same product but with slight difference in features but none of them are truly whole...

Then again, I'd be scared if there was one company to rule them all

Not a real lawyer but I practices internet / bird law (also not a real thing).

Legally, I think you'd find it pretty hard / expensive to win / collect on a situation where you provided a free suggestion and they used it be it the UI or more complex processes.

If you just want 'credit' like your name on a thing, that's likely just a case of you asking and them saying yes or no and again at that point ... it's just up to them.

And really most business processes / and etc really do lend themselves to similar conclusions when developed independently so not sure what that really 'proves'.

You would have had to patented it. That is the only way to protect ideas. Copywrite only protects implementation. Designing a similar UI is not infringement. Using bitmaps you created as images in their app would be copyright infringement.

you would have to prove in court that you did not intend for them to have the feature freely, and that they were not already working on it and had the same idea as a confidence. at least in the usa.

Nope. You're fucked. Learn from it and stop giving away your IP.