Imo, the fact that Nintendo and Pokémon company didn't take action while Palworld was in development despite the game being public is huge. Most of the pal designs shown back then were similar to pokemon as well. People only started caring when the game launched and became an overnight success. For most of the people, things only start to matter if they're successful. If not, no one bats an eye For now, I think palworld is in the clear but you never know. Hope it continues to grow cuz it's a genuinely great game and competition is the only think that's going to force Game Freak to get off its laurels and actually improve the Pokémon games