The cross section for open beauty production in photon--photon collisions is measured using the L3 detector at LEP using a data sample of 627 pb^-1 collected at a e⁺e^- center-of-mass energy \sqrt {s}=189--209 GeV. The e⁺e^-\rightarrow e⁺e^-b \bar b X cross section is measured within our fiducial volume and then extrapolated to the full phase space. These results are found to be in significant excess with respect to Monte Carlo predictions and next-to-leading order QCD calculations before and after extrapolation.

PACS numbers: 13.66.De, 14.65.Fy