You might have read about a UCLA team that's developed a way to reduce UV degradation of thin film solar cell systems. They claim a patent for a "photon converting material" that converts UV into a lower-energy wavelength light. Yeah, it's actually just a fluorescent dye. Adding fluorescent dyes to CCDs has been common practice to increase the terrible efficiency of CCDs in the UV. I can't see what new non-obvious thing here needs to be patented.
This is the sort of thing a smart journalist needs to ask questions about, instead of taking a press release at face value.
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13372-green-invention-special-longlife-solar-cells.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/solar-cell-coating.php
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