LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - An Australian computer

scientist who falsely claimed he invented bitcoin was on

Thursday found in contempt of court for bringing a 911

billion-pound ($1.2 trillion) lawsuit against Twitter founder

Jack Dorsey's payments company Block in Britain.

Craig Wright had long claimed to have been the author of a

2008 white paper, the foundational text of bitcoin, published

under the pseudonym "Satoshi Nakamoto".

But a judge at London's High Court found in May that Wright

had lied "extensively and repeatedly" and forged documents to

support his false claim, after a trial in a case brought by the

Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to stop Wright suing bitcoin

developers.

COPA argued that Wright's recent lawsuit against Block and

others breached an injunction preventing Wright from bringing

litigation on the basis of his claim to be Satoshi or that he

owned intellectual property rights over bitcoin.

Judge James Mellor ruled on Thursday that Wright was in

contempt of court, following a hearing on Wednesday which Wright

did not attend.

Wright was last month refused permission to appeal against

Mellor's ruling that he did not invent bitcoin.