I replied privately to Owen, but might as well share: On May 23, 2013, at 11:57 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:
True, according to (at least some of) the RIRs they reside in regions... Really? Which ones? I thought they were only issued to organizations that had operations in regions. That was exactly my point, Bill... If you have operations in RIPE and ARIN regions, it is entirely possible for you to obtain addresses from RIPE or ARIN and use them in both locations, or, obtain addresses from both RIPE and ARIN and use them in their respective regions, or mix and match in just about any imaginable way. Thus, IP addresses don't reside in regions, either. They are merely issued somewhat regionally.
A direct quote from a recent interaction with ARIN (this was requested by ARIN staff as part of the back and forth for requesting address space): "Please reply and verify that you will be using the requested number resources within the ARIN region and announcing all routing prefixes of the requested space from within the ARIN region. In accordance with section 2.2 of the NRPM, ARIN issues number resources only for use within its region. ARIN is therefore only able to provide for your in-region numbering needs." I believe AfriNIC and LACNIC have similar limitations on use but am too lazy to look it up (and I don't really care all that much: just thought it was amusing). Regards, -drc