The disposable adhesive pad approach that became standard is quite different from the belt-and-holder system she improved.

But the innovation in menstrual product design that Kenner contributed to — the thinking about how to make these products more reliable, more comfortable, and more secure — is part of the lineage of development that has produced the contemporary products.

Kenner’s legacy is not primarily in the specific products that bear her design.

It is in the demonstration, repeated five times across five patent applications, that a Black woman from Washington, D.C., who ran a flower shop for a living, could identify real problems and design real solutions and navigate the patent system successfully.

That demonstration is its own contribution, separate from any specific product.