diff --git a/lib/ansible/inventory/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/inventory/__init__.py
index eb8d1905502..3d9ad3516d9 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/inventory/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/inventory/__init__.py
@@ -78,6 +78,10 @@ class Inventory(object):
         self._restriction = None
         self._subset = None
 
+        # clear the cache here, which is only useful if more than
+        # one Inventory objects are created when using the API directly
+        self.clear_pattern_cache()
+
         self.parse_inventory(host_list)
 
     def serialize(self):