Networking: Reserved IP Address Ranges

When creating IP addresses, can I simply make up the IP address, or is there more to the process?
If external IP access is required then a unique IP address space must be assigned by an Internet Registry agency, such as InterNIC.

According to RFC 1597 the following addresses are reserved for private networks and for security or other reasons they do not enable access to the internet .

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255

These addresses are unique only within the intranet of the organization. Computers using IP addresses within these ranges are considered private hosts and cannot have IP connectivity to a computer that has external IP access.
Published Date: Feb 18, 2012