Reference

http://wiki.csswg.org/spec/css3-ui#issue-5, especially link 3.

Why am I bringing this back up?

Confusion about specs/implementation

It should be possible to enable any one of 4 different states:
Floating SVG element (position:absolute) Inline SVG element
Non-blocking/non-interactive
(does not trigger events)
[1] critical (no workaround) [2] useful (complex workaround)
Blocking/interactive
(triggers events)
[3] non-critical (easy workaround) [4] non-critical (easy workaround)
Also, there is a question about what should be the default state:
[5] Default State for:
Floating SVG element (position:absolute)
[6] Default State for:
Inline SVG element

This make a total of 6 different states. However, only state [1] is absolutely critical (since there are no workarounds if a browser does not provide support for it).

What I am testing

I have provided some test results for two states: State [1] and State [2]

How

To test States [1] and [2], I added "pointer-events:none" to the svg tag. In theory this should mean the svg tag should be non-blocking and should not trigger pointer events.

Unfortunately, much of this was still up in the air (spec-wise) when I last visited this issue months ago. So I do not know the proper way to test the other 4 states (and, for all I know, I may even be testing all of them wrong).

Tests

[1] (TEST_1)

DOM

div [position:absolute]
    svg [position:absolute,pointer-events:none]

Layers (visually rendered)
body
div
svg
Event Dispatcher:
div (when clicking on svg location)
Event Order:
  1. Capture: body
  2. Capture: div
  3. Bubble: div
  4. Bubble: body
Code Sample (view source):
[1] (TEST_2)

DOM

div [position:absolute]
    svg [position:absolute, pointer-events:none]
        rect [pointer-events:visible]

Layers
body
div
svg
rect
Event Dispatcher:
rect (when clicking on rect location)
Event Order:
  1. Capture: body
  2. Capture: div
  3. Capture: svg
  4. Capture: rect
  5. Bubble: rect
  6. Bubble: svg
  7. Bubble: div
  8. Bubble: body
Code Sample (view source):
[1] (TEST_3)

DOM

div [position:absolute]
    svg [position:absolute, pointer-events:none]
        rect [pointer-events:none]

Layers
body
div
svg
rect
Event Dispatcher:
div (when clicking on rect location)
Event Order:
  1. Capture: body
  2. Capture: div
  3. Bubble: div
  4. Bubble: body
Code Sample (view source):
[2] (TEST_4)

DOM

div
    svg {inline}[pointer-events:none]

Layers
body
div
svg
Event Dispatcher:
div (when clicking on svg location)
Event Order:
  1. Capture: body
  2. Capture: div
  3. Bubble: div
  4. Bubble: body
Code Sample (view source):
[2] (TEST_5)

DOM

div
    svg {inline}[pointer-events:none]
        rect [pointer-events:visible]

Layers
body
div
svg
rect
Event Dispatcher:
rect (when clicking on rect location)
Event Order:
  1. Capture: body
  2. Capture: div
  3. Capture: svg
  4. Capture: rect
  5. Bubble: rect
  6. Bubble: svg
  7. Bubble: div
  8. Bubble: body
Code Sample (view source):
[2] (TEST_6)

DOM

div
    svg {inline}[pointer-events:none]
        rect [pointer-events:none]

Layers
body
div
svg
rect
Event Dispatcher:
div (when clicking on rect location)
Event Order:
  1. Capture: body
  2. Capture: div
  3. Bubble: div
  4. Bubble: body
Code Sample (view source):