You only get a one year grace period after first public discloser to file for a patent in the US. So if the dates in this scenario are: - paper in 2003 - patent 2004-10-21

Only if the paper was released between 2003-10-22 and 2003-12-31 would it meet the one year grace period requirement.

Looks like it’s not relevant in this case since they got a provisional patent in 2002, but that’s likely what the above was referring to as “a point against that patent”.