css 'pointer-events' property alternative for IE

I have a drop down navigation menu in which some of the title should not navigate to other page when clicked(these title open a drop down menu when clicked on) while others should navigate (these dont have dropdown and navigate directly).However, both types have href defined to them

To solve this i added the following css for the former type of titles

pointer-events: none;

and it is working fine.But since this property is not supported by IE, i am looking for some work-around. The annoying thing is that i don't have access and privilege to change the HTML and JavaScript code completely.

Any ideas?

Pointer-events is a Mozilla hack and where it has been implemented in Webkit browsers, you can't expect to see it in IE browsers for another million years.

There is however a solution I found:

Forwarding Mouse Events Through Layers

This uses a plugin that uses some not well known/understood properties of Javascript to take the mouse event and send it to another element.

There is also another Javascript solution here.

Update for October 2013: apparently it's coming to IE in v11. Source. Thanks Tim.

Here is another solution that is very easy to implement with 5 lines of code:

1. Capture the 'mousedown' event for the top element (the element you want to turn off pointer events).
2. In the 'mousedown' hide the top element.
3. Use 'document.elementFromPoint()' to get the underlying element.
4. Unhide the top element.
5. Execute the desired event for the underlying element.

Example:

//This is an IE fix because pointer-events does not work in IE
$(document).on('mousedown', '.TopElement', function (e) {

    $(this).hide();
    var BottomElement = document.elementFromPoint(e.clientX, e.clientY);
    $(this).show();
    $(BottomElement).mousedown(); //Manually fire the event for desired underlying element

    return false;

});

There's a workaround for IE - use inline SVG and set pointer-events="none" in SVG. See my answer in How to make Internet Explorer emulate pointer-events:none?