https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pok%C3%A9mon_Company

I'm totally out of touch regarding big companies, and to prove, here's a quote from the Wikipedia article that left me completelly baffled: Managing a bunch of mosters inside some balls takes quite some space huh?
Mind you, this is the USA office, not the headquarters...

Merchandising and direct advertising takes a lot of work.

My bet is they are going for the Pokeball vs Pal Sphere angle.

There are so many things wrong in this post that it is ridiculous. Japan had a very strong and distinct visual culture until 1945. However, as a consequence of the war, Japan was occupied by the USA until the Treaty of San Francisco in 1952. During this period, Japanese culture was suppressed and instead flooded by American culture, which included animation and comics. The economic situation in Japan also meant that during this time there were very few resources to produce their own cultural artifacts, so instead, they imported them. These imports were regulated by the USA, which heavily influenced where most of the imports came from.

By the way, the person you are thinking of is Osamu Tezuka, who is called the godfather of modern manga. He was very influential in shaping the modern manga style and was indeed influenced by Disney, but even more so by Fleischer. There was no 'copying,' but rather a visual style that Tezuka adopted, changed and made famous. If this is considered 'copying,' then all art is copied. If you want to talk about copying, many American companies have more or less lifted successful manga works and made them 'American' without credit. Just look at the example of 'Kimba the White Lion' and 'The Lion King.'

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - copyright laws in Japan are stricter than those in the USA, and very different from, for example, China.

Pokeballs were in the original Pokemon game that was released in the 90s.

a) Did Nintendo take out a patent on the pokeball design at that time?

b) If so, would a Japanese patent that old still be active?

According to Wikipedia, Japanese patents last for 20 years from the filing date. Therefore, it seems unlikely to be pokeballs.

Palworld is probably in trouble here. I don't know much about Japanese patent law and such but I do know this - Nintendo has never lost a patent lawsuit in Japan.

This is going to be an interesting case of what qualifies for infringement, it always seemed close but distinct but perhaps not enough.

I imagine that Nintendo intends to use the discovery process to white glove test the entirety of PocketPal.