@TerryHancock Oh, believe me, I am solely limiting my comments there to "thinking out loud to try and interpret the wording they use", which says it was a renewal search. I'm not making any claim about their rationale being correct.
As you say, it does not really make a whole lot of sense. The only other possible angle I could come up with was that they think a loophole arose because of the multiple publications (magazine first) but I still don't get what that would be exactly.
@TerryHancock (I had also just wanted to note from my own experience that the "search" process I assume they rely on is super buggy and inconclusive)