Explaining the product of two ideals

One would like the product ideal to be $$IJ=\{ij\mid i\in I,j\in J\}$$ but we can easily see that there is a problem. It must be closed under addition, so $ij+i'j'$ must be in $IJ$. Can you find $i''\in I$, $j''\in J$ such that $ij+i'j'=i''j''$ so that it's in $IJ$ as defined above? Not in general, no. The natural way to allow for additive closure is to define $IJ$ as you did, including arbitrary finite sums of products.

For a complete answer let me add an example: $I=(2,X)$ and $J=(3,X)$ in $\mathbb Z[X]$. Then $IJ=(6,X)$ (why?), thus $X\in IJ$ and $X$ can't be written as $ij$ with $i\in I, j\in J$ (why?). (Note that if one of the ideals is principal one can't get such an example.)

Another way to phrase this: The product ideal $IJ$ is the smallest ideal containing all the products of elements of $I$ with elements of $J$.

As for examples: In $\mathbb{Z}$, we have $$\langle a\rangle\langle b\rangle=\langle ab\rangle$$

Since it was also asked for examples, let me mention how to compute the product of two ideals (beyond the already mentioned principal ideals).

If $I$ is generated by elements $\{a_i\}$ and $J$ is generated by elements $\{b_j\}$, then $I \cdot J$ is generated by the elements $\{a_i \cdot b_j\}$. You can verify this either using the element definition of $I \cdot J$, or using the more elegant definition of $I \cdot J$ as the smallest ideal containing all products.

For example, in $\mathbb{Q}[x,y]$, one computes $(x,y) \cdot (x^2,y^2)=(x^3,x y^2,x^2 y,y^3)$.

In general, one observes that $I \cdot J \subseteq I \cap J$. This is not an equality in general; in the above example the intersection is just $(x,y)$. However, one has (in the commutative case) $\sqrt{I \cdot J} = \sqrt{I \cap J}$.