Raph:

The fonts embedded in Adobe's SVG output use a new CEF format, and Adobe plans to release specs. It sounds like they were careful to use unrestricted technology (in the IP sense), so that open implementations could be made. Some relevant quotes from Michael Bierman (mbierman@adobe.com):

At the basis of CEF fonts are Type1 font outlines, for which there are numerous implementations, both proprietary and open-source. CEF offers a unique combination of benefits: very compact font downloads, hinting support for best quality at small type sizes, open specifications, and straightforward implementation. Adobe's plan is to generate both CEF fonts and SVG fonts from our authoring tools, and to support both of these font formats in the Adobe SVG Viewer. That way, SVG files generated from Adobe tools will have font reliability across all viewers, but will have very fast downloads and top quality rendering in viewers that support CEF fonts, such as the Adobe SVG Viewer. Adobe intends to publish the specification for CEF fonts in the near future so that other people can author them and view them.

That's from a post to netscape.public.mozilla.svg, and there's a thread on this topic, if you're interested.

Assuming Adobe follows through on releasing the specs (and I can't imagine that they won't), it sounds like an interesting font format (simple, hinted, compressed, no IP problems).