Outdated - current proposal is at https://github.com/justinfagnani/scoped-custom-elements
Scoped Custom Element definitions is an oft-requested feature of Web Components. The global registry is a possible source of name collisions that may arise from coincidence, or from an app trying to define multiple versions of the same element, or from more advanced scenarios like registering mocks during tests, or a component explicitly replacing an element definition for its scope.
Since the key DOM creation APIs are global, scoping definitions is tricky because we'd need a machanis to determind which scope to use. But if we offer scoped versions of these APIs the problem is tractable. This requires that DOM creation code is upgraded to use the new scoped APIs, something that hopefully could be done in template libraries and frameworks.