Andrea Watt came up with a billion-dollar idea when she was just 20 years old, and she wouldn’t mind at least getting a little credit. 
 
 During a summer internship in 1995, Watt and three other college students pitched the idea of a Doritos-shell taco to Taco Bell executives as part of an intern competition. They lost that contest, but their idea turned out to be a winner more than 15 years later: Taco Bell has netted more than $1 billion in sales from its eerily similar product, the Doritos Locos Taco, which it launched in 2012. 
 
 “I’m sure I signed away that anything I pitched to them was their property anyway,” Watt said. “I would just like someone to recognize that it was a good idea." 
 
 From left to right: Andrea Watt, Roy Brown, Mark Rader and a fourth team member. 
 
 At the time, Watt was surprised her team lost the contest -- which only offered as prizes bragging rights and the possibility the winning idea could become a reality -- to a pitch for a line of Taco Bell-themed appetizers called “Mexitizers.” In the years since, she has boasted about the Doritos taco to friends and potential employers, and insisted to her husband that they move mementos from her internship through two family homes. Her LinkedIn even lists her as the original creator of the product. 
 
 It was Watt's husband who broke the news to her last year that her genius food mashup had finally become a reality. 
 
 “When I saw it come out, my jaw almost dropped,” Watt said. “I’m surprised it took so long, it was just so obvious to us then. When we did our presentation they were like, ‘It’s not really that marketable,’ and we were like, ‘What?’” 
 
 Promotional materials Watt and her team developed for the Doritos taco. Notice it's just 79 cents. The suggested retail price for a Doritos Locos Taco is $1.39. 
 
 Another team member, Mark Rader, learned of the Doritos Locos Taco when he saw an ad for it on a billboard in Chicago. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, no way,’” Rader said. “It’s really a thing. Are people really going to want this?” 
 
 Rader had an inkling in 1995 that his team’s idea was a good one. It gave Doritos and Taco Bell, then both owned by PepsiCo, a chance for cross-promotion. And Rader knew that late teens and 20-somethings would relish the bizarre mix of foods. Taco Bell even ended up using Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch flavors for its Doritos Locos, the two flavors his team pitched, Rader said. 
 
 “We were brought in, I’m sure, because they were really going after 18 to 24-year-olds. We thought, ‘Hell yeah, I know a 20-year-old kid who is going to eat a Dorito taco,’” Rader said. 
 
 Bob Taber, who in 1995 was an account supervisor at Bozell, Taco Bell’s ad agency at the time, said the intern competition was meant to give Taco Bell the chance to tap into the minds of young people. Taber doesn’t remember Watt's team's exact pitch, but he said it certainly didn’t escape the eyes of Taco Bell brass. 
 
 “I don’t know what the client ended up doing with them, but the client certainly saw all of the pitches,” said Taber, now the executive director of branding and communications at Colorado State University's business school. “It’s not uncommon at all to come up with a new product idea that goes nowhere, but then years later pops up.” 
 
 A letter to Watt (then Andrea Simkins) from a Taco Bell executive offering feedback on her team's idea. 
 
 The former interns say they don't want any money for their idea. But they're all pretty sure they're the first ones who came up with it. 
 
 Rob Poetsch, Taco Bell's director of public affairs and engagement, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post that regardless of the team members' claims, the Doritos Locos Taco was created, developed and brought to market by teams at Frito Lay and Taco Bell. 
 
 "Good ideas can come from anywhere, but an idea without execution does not make a successful product," he wrote. "The concept of making a taco shell out of Doritos may have come to people’s minds which is why we’ve had no shortage of those who have claimed it was their idea.” 
 
 Indeed, others have tried to take credit for the Doritos taco since its launch. A federal prison inmate sued Taco Bell last year, claiming he came up with the idea and that Taco Bell executives stole it. 
 
 And Todd Mills, an Arkansas dad who launched a Facebook campaign in 2009 asking Taco Bell to make a Doritos taco, was invited to taste it in early testing, according to USA Today. When Mills died last year, his friends honored him by posting pictures of themselves on Facebook eating the Doritos Locos Tacos. Though Taco Bell acknowledged Mills' support, he never saw any proceeds from the product. 
 
 Watt, Rader and a third team member, Roy Brown, all agree that their internship was a good experience. They were wined and dined and had access to Taco Bell food scientists, executives and trade secrets. 
 
 Those resources helped make their Doritos taco pitch more thorough than what they might have concocted on their own. The team figured out the logistics and cost of getting a specialty item at Taco Bell stores, they said. They looked into whether there might be a machine that could spray Doritos flavoring on tacos. They even came up with commercial concepts, including using 90’s heartthrob and "Friends" star Matthew Perry as a pitchman. 
 
 “It was a great internship,” Watt said. “We actually came up with a really great idea that was marketable. We all came away from the loss really disappointed.” 
 
 Brown agreed. “I remember being mad we didn’t win because I thought we had the best product,” he said. 
 
 Despite their idea, none of the three team members interviewed ended up pursuing a career in food. Brown lives in California and works as a TV writer, and Rader is an advertising copywriter and children’s book author (“nothing taco related,” he quipped). Watt worked for Bozell for a year after her internship, and she now works for a company that offers leadership and sales training to major corporations. 
 
 “[My job] is not directly related, but I think the internship was probably the moment where I realized I wanted to get into business,” Watt said. 
 
 Even though they were once Taco Bell insiders, none of the three eat there regularly. Still, they indulge every once in a while -- including eating Doritos Locos Tacos. 
 
 “I finally tried one after about a year and a half of them being out,” Rader said. “It was pretty good.” ||||| Taco Bell claims that its product developers came up with the idea for the Doritos Locos Taco -- probably the most successful new fast food item of the 21st century so far, with more than half a billion sold in the past 14 months -- at a summit with Frito-Lay executives at its Irvine, Calif., headquarters. 
 
 But a lawsuit filed by federal prison inmate Gary Cole in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on May 15 alleges that the story behind the taco is a lie. In his 35-page handwritten complaint, Cole insists that he invented the Doritos Locos Taco -- and that Taco Bell and Frito-Lay stole the idea from him through the mail. 
 
 In September 2006, Cole wrote up a list of nine product ideas. Most of them were assorted products -- hot sauces, body oils, health mixes -- to be sold under the brand "Divas and Ballers." But one, the second in the list, was "Taco Shells of All Flavors (Made of Doritos)." 
 
 The complaint says Cole sent the list to Janice B Cole and Keoiana K. Cole in September 2010 -- but that the letter was "stolen through the United States Postal Service Mail and submitted to Frito Lays [sic], Taco Bell, Pepsi Co, Yum Brands," by someone whose identity remains a mystery to Cole. The companies gave the mail thief "a check ... for a large amount" for the rights to his idea, then started manufacturing and selling the Doritos Locos Taco, the complaint says. It is unclear how Janice and Keoiana Cole are connected to Gary Cole. 
 
 Taco Bell responded to questions from The Huffington Post about the complaint with an emailed statement. "We have not been served with the lawsuit, but the claims we’ve read in online news sources are completely false and without merit," it said. 
 
 In his lawsuit, Cole asks the court to order Taco Bell, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo and Yum Brands to give him documents regarding the invention of Doritos Locos Tacos, which he is confident will prove that they stole the idea from him. In the meantime, he requests that the court place "a lean on Taco Bell, Frito Lays, Pepsi Co, Yum Brands, to stop the production and sell of taco shells made of Doritos flavors." [sic] 
 
 UPDATE: 3:42 p.m. -- This story has been changed to add a response from Taco Bell. 
 
 Also on HuffPost: ||||| Todd Mills tastes for the first time a Doritos Locos Taco in the Taco Bell test kitchen. (Photo: Tacos Made from Doritos Movement Facebook page) 
 
 The visionary behind the billion-dollar Doritos Locos Tacos idea never made any money on it. 
 
 Instead, Todd Mills shrugged off any attention, simply wanting his "cool idea" to come true, said Mills' wife, Ginger. 
 
 Mills, 41, died on Thanksgiving after battling brain cancer. He's survived by daughters, Tyler, 19, and Lainey, 6. 
 
 When friends learned he had passed away, they took pictures of themselves eating the tacos and posted the images to Facebook, Ginger Mills said. 
 
 "It was a sweet memorial," she said. 
 
 Mike Essmann, a friend of Todd Mills, poses with a Doritos Locos Taco with his wife, Mercedes, and son, Mike, Jr. Essmann posted the photo to Mills' Facebook page after Mills passed away. (Photo: Courtesy of Mike Essmann) 
 
 Mills said her husband often made taco salads using Doritos and frequently said someone should make taco shells out of the cheesy snack. 
 
 In 2009, Mills wrote a letter to Frito-Lay pitching the idea. Their response was, "Thanks, but no thanks," Ginger Mills said. 
 
 After receiving the rejection letter, he vowed to pursue the idea "from the grass-roots level," said longtime friend Jimmy Looney, who served in the Air Force with Mills. 
 
 Mills started the Facebook page "Taco Shells from Doritos Movement" in 2009, encouraging followers to "tell Frito-Lay that we demand nacho cheesy taco shells!" 
 
 On the page, Mills posted photoshopped images of well known figures including Albert Einstein with a cheesy taco shell in a thought bubble, Steve Jobs holding a Macbook with a cheesy taco shell on the screen and Chuck Norris doing a karate kick while holding a cheesy taco shell. The page has more than 4,200 likes. 
 
 (Photo: Taco Shells Made from Doritos Movement Facebook page) 
 
 "He was a master with Photoshop, and he created this movement," Looney said. 
 
 One day, Todd noticed Taco Bell had commented on one of his images. 
 
 "He was really excited," Ginger Mills said. "Taco Bell was paying attention to him. Of course, we called everyone we knew." 
 
 In 2012, Todd Mills received a phone call from Taco Bell. The company was developing the prized creation — calling it the Doritos Locos Tacos — and wanted to fly Todd out to its test kitchen in California. He was among the first people to try the new product. 
 
 In an e-mailed statement, Taco Bell called Mills a "true friend" of the company. "We are honored to have had his support through the Doritos for Taco Shells Movement on Facebook, and we admire his strength and optimism during his recent battle. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Todd's family during this time," according to Taco Bell's statement. 
 
 The experimental combination has paid off for Taco Bell. This year, the company said it exceeded $1 billion in sales of the Doritos Locos Tacos, according to The Huffington Post. 
 
 It's unclear how much influence Mills had on Taco Bell's launch of the Locos Tacos. Although friends, including Looney, had urged Mills to seek compensation for the idea he championed, Todd did not pursue it. 
 
 "Todd being Todd, he never asked for anything," Looney said. "He said, 'I just want my tacos.'" 
 
 Cancer forced Mills to stop working in August as the vice president of media and information technology at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, Looney said. 
 
 Todd Mills' daughter, Lainey, 6. (Photo: Family photo) 
 
 As he went through two brain surgeries and a lung surgery, Looney set up a website to accept donations to help pay for Mills' medical bills. Mills would never set up such a site himself, Looney said. Looney reached out to Taco Bell's CEO on Twitter, and the company donated $1,000, Looney said. 
 
 Looney described Mills as "a guy with a good idea and a good heart." Mills' funeral was held Dec. 2. Afterward, Looney said, friends went to Taco Bell and had Doritos Locos Tacos in his honor. 
 
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– While interning for Taco Bell's ad agency in the summer of 1995, four college students took part in a competition. Their idea—which didn't win, yet might seem familiar: a taco shell made out of ... Doritos. Of course, Taco Bell ultimately came out with just that roughly 17 years later, and its insanely successful line of Doritos Locos Tacos has netted the firm more than $1 billion in sales. Andrea Watt, one of the former interns, tells the Huffington Post she doesn't want money ("I’m sure I signed away that anything I pitched to them was their property anyway"), but she wouldn't mind at least some credit—for an idea that she recalls being told wasn't "really that marketable." The Huffington Post has all sorts of proof of their idea, including promotional materials the team created. They suggested calling the product "Dorito Tacos," charging 79 cents, and having Matthew Perry shill for the item. Another team member, Mark Rader, adds that the two flavors the team pitched—Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch—ended up being the first two flavors offered by Taco Bell. A former account supervisor for the ad agency at the time says "the client certainly saw all the pitches." But others have claimed to be the brains behind the taco, including a man whose 2013 obit widely touted him as having pitched the idea to Frito Lay in 2009, and a former prison inmate who's actually suing over the matter; he claims a mystery person stole a letter containing the idea from the USPS and gave it to Taco Bell. In response to the new claims, a rep for Taco Bell pointed out that concept and execution are two different things. Indeed, it ultimately took years of unusual testing to bring the taco to life.