Firstly - 'Open innovation' is the term  used to describe this process, this involves engaging with parties external to the company and in the purest sense enabling unsolicited approaches with new product or service ideas. Traditionally companies innovated internally or used consultants etc. who were contracted. Occasionally public were engaged through competitions etc. in all cases there was a contractual agreement that the Intellectual property (IP) would belong to the company. This potential minefield of receiving unsolicited ideas and then being sued when the company launches a product even remotely similar tends to inhibit Open Innovation in its most 'Open' form and companies employing this will generally implement some form of control process.

In terms of how companies screen ideas - most large companies will have a formal innovation process - often referred to as an 'Innovation funnel'. At different stages there will be a formal review process where ideas are either accepted or rejected before the next stage of development begins. However there are also a number of process used between these gates, particularly during the early stages of ideation and concept generation. There are a number of methods that can be used some qualitative, some quantitative depending on the level of development and the aspects being assessed. At an ideas level it is usually assessed either by experts within the company, SWOT analysis, focus groups of consumers and so on. An idea can be assessed on many levels, market potential, consumer benefits, technical feasibility, business fit, etc.  At a later stage as the idea is transformed into a design concept these will often be evaluated against the Product Design Specification (PDS) which may use weighting to provide a single point score. Other tools such as quality function deployment (QFD) can also be used.

However, coming back to my first point, most companies will return an unsolicited idea for a new product from outside the company unopened for the potential legal reasons mentioned.

Hope this gives you some pointers

I'm delighted by seeing your detailed answer. Thank you so much Dr. James..!!!

I have the following articles in this exact area.  Best Wishes.

Article: A Survey of New Product Evaluation Models

Muammer Ozer

Preview · Article · Dec 1998 · Journal of Product Innovation Management

Article: Managing the Selection Process for New Product Ideas

Muammer Ozer

No preview · Article · Jul 2004 · Research Technology Management

Article: Factors which influence decision making in new product evaluation.

Muammer Ozer

Preview · Article · Jun 2005 · European Journal of Operational Research

Article: Reducing the Demand Uncertainties at the Fuzzy-Front-End of Developing New Online Services

Muammer Ozer

Full-text · Article · Nov 2007 · Research Policy

Article: The roles of product lead-users and product experts in new product evaluation

Muammer Ozer

Full-text · Article · Oct 2009 · Research Policy

Article: The Moderating Roles of Prior Experience and Behavioral Importance in the Predictive Validity of New Product Concept Testing

Muammer Ozer

No preview · Article · Dec 2010 · Journal of Product Innovation Management

Brain storming is one of the finest way to have a new idea from existing R&D people/consumer and people involve in manufacturing and quality control

True.

I would add that you must get all the perspectives into the room: The users who would use the product; The design and production teams who would get the product out; The sales and marketing teams who meet customers across segments; The finance and legal staff to take care of the costs, pitfalls and opportunities from their angles.

Have a session with presentations from each of the product champion teams. You will get a winner, or you may get ideas for a hybrid winner!

Thank you very much Professor Ozer for your valuable contribution !!!

Thank you Dr. Singh, for your response.I couldn't see the attachments...

Thank you Prof. Dhananjay for your response. Yes of course i agree with you.. brainstorming is a good way of collecting new ideas.. Actually I wanted to know how companies SELECT the most feasible ideas..to proceed with...

Thank you Ms. Mita for your response...!!!

I am trying to find out how companies select good ideas from the generated set of ideas...

Companies, especially large companies, will have to start with idea matrix to find a recurrence idea. Then follow  formal approach suggested above. Idea matrix is relatively new. It is something like having a grid in a square box with different groups (or sources of ides) place on right and bottom axes. The essence is to identify the dominant idea across all groups/sources. Remember, today's business environment is highly integrated, automated and globalized. Many organisations would prefer going global to leverage on the advantages of the convergence technologies. Therefore, an idea that are likely to be limited to a particular group of audience is less preferable in modern organisations. Thus, developing a product that appeal to a larger audience requires distilling ideas from the difference sources. It is idea matrix that enable the distillation to be effected.

I have got the following article on that issue:

http://bmc.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/2277977916636981.abstract

Best regards..

 Thank you Mr. Sunday!

Thank you Mr. Burak !

Dr. Singh, Now I can see the attachments. Thank you so much !!!

we have just published a nice article on idea evaluation for open idea sourcing (open access): pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/isre.2015.0605

You might be interested in the following conference proceedings. My paper is forthcoming soon in Business Education and Accreditation journal.

 Thanks a lot Professor  Ivo !!!

Thank you Dr. Juha !!!

Now I am at the final stage of writing a book: The Business Innovation Book. Your question a subject of the book.

Follow my project!

https://www.researchgate.net/project/Business-Innovations-textbook