So how are non-damaging given a type?

All moves are categorized not by the offensive effects they have on other pokémon but rather on the element they apparently are aligned with. All moves, regardless of whether or not they do damage, resonate with a certain elemental energy that can be either observed outright or measured through any of an array of sensitive lab equipment, such as the elementometer (a device geared specifically towards sampling and breaking down a move’s resonant energies into types). A researcher just needs to get close enough to the move in use to take samples or record data, and the rest is fairly standard procedure from there.