Between bigger companies, stuff like that simply gets solved behind the scenes. Funny tidbit: Big Hollywood studios never sue each other over sound-effects. Because in the early days of cinema, no one kept track of who created which sounds, and Hollywood uses the same sound effects since that time (the famous Wilhelm's scream, or the eagle scream in Westerns) - everyone is aware they are probably using sound effects that technically belong to other companies, but it would cost too much to create completely new libraries for sound designers. So if there are any egregious examples (like a company creating a specific and unique sound effect for a new movie, and that sound effect then suddenly popping up in another movie) - they handle that stuff completely behind the scenes - "this is our soundeffect, here is an agreement for you using it once in that movie you already used it in, please throw it out of your library and never use it again". Case closed, no press release, crickets to the public.
As for this case - Abedin simply doesn't have these back-channels, and also apparently waay overplayed his hands (or, more likely, his lawyer - as a normal person it's damn hard to find even a half-decent lawyer!). I still think it looks very, very much like they lifted the Tardigrade idea almost directly from his trailers - could have been an intern making a mood chart or anything, really. But the rest of the product - despite some very obvious (SF trope) similarities - is clearly distinct, and the Tardiigrade appeared only in a handful of episodes. So even if I still think he should be compensated - it's not going to be any more of a deal than DIS paying to use David Bowies "Space Odditiy" in one episode. And his Tardigrade definitely isn't as big a deal as David Bowie.
