Testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing 'Trailblazers and Lost Einsteins: Women Inventors and the Future of American Innovation,' weeks before her death.
On April 3, 2019, just weeks before her death, Patricia Bath testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing titled 'Trailblazers and Lost Einsteins: Women Inventors and the Future of American Innovation.' Despite battling the cancer that would soon take her life, Bath used one of her final public platforms to advocate for greater support and recognition of women inventors, particularly women of color, who remained dramatically underrepresented among patent holders in the United States.
Her testimony drew on her own extraordinary journey as the first African-American woman physician to receive a medical patent, using her personal experience to illustrate both the systemic barriers facing women and minority inventors and the transformative potential unlocked when those barriers are overcome. She spoke to policymakers about the need for institutional reforms to close the 'patent gender gap' and to ensure that talented women and people of color had equitable access to the resources, mentorship, and capital needed to bring their innovations to fruition.
This testimony stands as one of the final public acts of Bath's remarkable career, a fitting capstone to a life dedicated not only to inventing sight-saving technology but to advocating for equity and opportunity in science and medicine more broadly. It underscored her enduring role as a mentor and advocate even in her final months.