GENEVA (Reuters) - The nature conservation body WWF-International on Tuesday lost a legal tussle over its famous Panda symbol.

The United Nations ( news - web sites) copyright agency WIPO said one of its dispute arbitrators had rejected a complaint from the Swiss- based WWF over a French bathroom and kitchen furniture firm's Web site called panda.biz.

WWF -- whose own Web site is panda.org -- argued that Paris-based Allia S.A. had no right to use the animal for the name of its site because none of its products were called Panda.

The body, a non-governmental organization that last month won a court order barring the World Wrestling Federation from using the acronym WWF, also asserted that the French company had registered the site in bad faith.

Over the past two years, WIPO has ordered owners of sites using the names of famous people like film star Julia Roberts and singer Celine Dion ( news - web sites) to take them down -- accepting that their registration had been intended to mislead Web-surfers.

But Allia said there was no law preventing a firm registering a Web site under a name different from its corporate title or trademarks, and that there could be no confusion since the two entities had totally different activities.

The arbitrator for WIPO -- the World Intellectual Property Organization -- found that the firm had no right to or legitimate interest in the Panda name, which was first trademarked by WWF in 1961.

But he rejected the WWF request that it be given the right to use panda.biz in future, saying there was no evidence that Allia had aimed to abuse it.

Individuals and campaigning groups -- sometimes dubbed cybersquatters -- often register site names on the Internet using names of well-known organizations or people, either to sell them at a premium or to parody official sites. Anti-globalizers highly critical of the World Trade Organization -- whose site is wto.org -- have set up a replica site called gatt.org which recently carried a false report saying the body was going into liquidation.

GATT was the acronym for the WTO's predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

But WTO officials say they do not plan to pursue the owners of the site through WIPO, arguing that this would simply give it more publicity.

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