You seem to be suggesting that the release date of a single emulator is the starting point? We're not supposed to count the prior years? No one tried before that? There's no prior art that people can build on?
Lots of projects started and were abandoned. A brief search and I can find at least 2 public projects started over 5 years ago, and many more abandoned efforts.
Poor wording. The content of the filing is confidential, not the act of filing.