Jim Oberweis in Forbes Magazine 2016 Candidates

On Foreign Policy: To understand China, read the 5-year plans

Oberweis: That's true. Although it tends to move slowly. What we look for is--read the five year plans. In the 2012 five year plan, we see money being funded for environmental cleanups, so we're investing in companies that clean up waste water. It isn't rocket science, it just requires some detail thinking. For most of the companies we're investing in, they're needles in haystacks. They're unlikely to--

Q: Get the wrath of the government?

Oberweis: Yeah, exactly. It tends to be more in some of the larger companies, where it is a little bit more important. They're also entrepreneurially owned, which helps to eliminate some of the political influence. If I was investing in a bank in China, I would be concerned because if the government says, "Loan," you loan. There's no opportunity to take shareholder value as a reason to disobey the government.

On Free Trade: Challenge in China is lack of clarity on taxes

Oberweis: We talked a lot to our tax people on this, as well. As it currently stands, nobody pays it and you have to be aware of it. I think you're going to see clarification on it, though. I think, within the next couple years, there'll be much sharper clarification. It's not only a question of China, but what about other companies that are listed elsewhere or have part of their business elsewhere? Or companies where their headquarters are elsewhere, but all the businesses are in China? That's one of the challenges of investing in China, is the lack of clarity with respect to tax positions. We have experts on our team who try to help advise us. I'll be the first to tell you, it is not a crystal clear area and you have to make the best decisions you can under the circumstances that you know.

On Free Trade: Invest in Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, India, and China

Oberweis: I'm going to Jakarta for an exploratory reason in February.

Q: Do you fear you've missed it?

Oberweis: Maybe. It's been on fire. We're going to go visit companies and look and see. We were in Vietnam two years ago looking at the same types of things. Vietnam is a great place to be. It's a really hard place to play public equity markets, just because it's a relatively corrupt insider trading environment. We're certainly seeing more ideas in Japan than we've seen in a long time. Part of that is currency, part of it is rebuilding and part of it is, I think, increasing trade with China. You would expect that, with the exception of the cultural barriers that are so high, but I think you'll see a little bit more of that in the decade to come. Money has a way of trumping even the gravest of enemies over time. India has always been an area of interest for us. Until recently, it's been hard to find the valuations that we like.

On Health Care: Not a fan of ObamaCare, but it helps healthcare businesses

Oberweis: I think I'm as worried as anyone else on the direction of the country. I think we've got a long way to go. Part of the reason we started investing in China and investing internationally is that we're--this was six years ago--we were worried about the direction the U.S. was going. That said, you don't have to invest in "America," per se. We can invest in HMS Systems down the street that audits Medicare and Medicaid plans for insurance billing and fraud. Am I a big fan of nationalized healthcare, even healthcare reform? No. Is it going to help HMS's business? Absolutely. It'll be terrific. So I think you have to be a niche player. You've got to find smaller ideas that are going to benefit in the conditions as they are. You can change the conditions and always try to find ways to make money in the conditions as they exist.

On Technology: Protect intellectual property rights, including lawsuits

Oberweis: What has been a great area in the last couple years are folks buying and selling patents. We own a company called Acacia Technology that goes to companies, buys patents or licenses patents, and then sues to enforce them or license them to those that are infringing.

Q: Aren't these just bloodsuckers, leeches just trolling and being a bane to everybody?

Oberweis: Some have said that. First of all, they're profitable leeches, if you take that connotation. But I would say no. They do fulfill a niche, and here's the niche. XYZ company is a small company, they do business with Microsoft, Microsoft infringes their patent. And if they decided to sue Microsoft, Microsoft buries them in paperwork for the next 20 years. I am a strong believer that intellectual property rights need to be protected. It's Acacia's business, and they help companies in that situation because that's their sole business.