I found a KB aricle on MSDN.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b322160

>Jayesh,
>
>Are you using the Microsoft .Net provider for Oracle? If so, how are you getting data back from an Oracle stored procedure? I need to change my application from OleDb to OracleClient and am having problems when I try to return REF CURSORS from the stored procedure and having .Net get the information. I keep getting an ORA-01036: illegal variable name/number error.
>
>TIA
>
>Rex