I would guess that the legal teams at major companies are traditionally gun shy about this kind of thing. Let's say Coke buys some IP resulting from this thing for $10k and then it goes on to revolutionize their business model and they make millions and millions from it .

I'm going to guess that whoever got stuck with the $10k is going to come back with lawyers and say they were taken advantage of, that their interests in the IP negotiation weren't properly represented, that a team of tinkers was no match to negotiate with a professional team of IP lawyers, etc... That's not to say that those are valid arguments, but they are arguments plenty of people make after the fact.

It's been my experience that huge companies have a vested interest in the appearance of dealing fairly and matter-of-factly with small third party vendors, especially in terms of IP law. Even if taking advantage of someone in such a manner doesn't become a legal issue, it's a huge PR liability.

Maybe because product development engineers know what their time and skills are worth, and it's a lot more than $10K?

Don't get me wrong, little contests like this can be great experience for smaller businesses that need development skill and for designers that need the portfolio pages.

But this is Coca-Cola. Then again, considering how much money got sunk into the Freestyle (and they're not out of the woods yet, that machine has problems), maybe a $10K contest is a way to keep the PD pipeline going and keep the accountants happy.

I think it's a matter of knowing how to connect to a community of folks who make things. That's probably why they partnered with Hacker Dojo.