It looks like OSS might get hurt as a side effect of this patent suit - even though the patent itself is blatantly stupid. FireStar claims to have invented O/R mapping in this patent. Hmm.

Just off the top of my head, The Object People created TopLink back in the early 90's. Around 1992 ParcPlace shipped the ObjectLens. There are likely hundred of others out there; those are just two Smalltalk specific implementations that come immediately to mind. Reading through the patent, it looks like the ObjectLens should certainly be prior art.

This is yet another example of how patents and software don't mix. Copyright ought to be enough.