I have been working with an attorney on filing a provisional patent on this design. We're filing a provisional patent applications in the US, so I will have a year from today to evaluate whether a utility patent is worth pursuing...and yes, I'll be selling the bridges to fund the patent process. It seems like I've been waiting forever to share the news.
As an FYI, there are currently no plate-style, single-piece (integrated bridge and tailpiece) 8-string bridges on the market and none has ever offered this combination of features integrated into a single design. I'll talk through the details in the next day or so, but right now I'm just taking a victory lap.