SHANGHAI, Oct 21 -- LAST October, a Beijing company sold 33 people 48 acres on the moon for 14,304 yuan (US$1,788).

But a district court in Beijing ruled against the business deal yesterday, rejecting the company's request to get back its certificates of ownership of moon real estate confiscated by government business administrators.

The problem, government officials said, was that the company's business license did not authorize it to sell the lunar property.

The Beijing Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau confiscated the certificates last October after the Beijing Moon Village Space Technology Co Ltd was found to be selling "lunar land."

The company was registered in September 2005 in Beijing's Chaoyang District. It originally wanted to register as Lunar Embassy, which authorities rejected.

But it promoted itself as Lunar Embassy anyhow.

From October 14 to 28 last year, the company illegally sold the lunar acreage to the 33 buyers. The company said the buyers would own both the land on their plots at the "moon village" as well as mineral resources on the plots three kilometers above and beneath the land.

The bureau confiscated the company's business license, account books, seals, lunar land property licenses and other office property. Officials ultimately returned all materials, except the lunar land papers.

The bureau also held firm against another request in June: To sell "World Cup air" it claimed was processed from soccer fields in Germany.