Obviously not

but not capturing by weakening the creature and throwing a ball at them.

If you think “throwing a ball” is a patentable (or even copyrightable) mechanic, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Palworld explicitly copies the style of creature design from Pokemon

Some pals are similar to Pokemon, sure, but a lot are quite distinct. If you have a problem with that though, take it up with The Pokemon Company, because they did it first.

The developers knew exactly what they were doing, so to claim it wasn’t intentional is disingenuous at best.

Of course it was intentional to make a game in the same genre as Pokemon, with similar mechanics. That’s how video games in the same genre work. You make them similar to things you know people like, so that there’s a greater chance they’ll like your game too, but you also introduce new, unique things so that you’re not copying. Yes, Palworld did that intentionally.

None of that is illegal though, or shouldn’t be anyways, unless they’re straight up stealing assets/code from a Pokemon game and using it in Palworld.